10/13/2026
A 20% enrollment decline. A hundred-and-twenty-year-old women's college. One partnership that turned it all around. ππ
What does it take to rebuild a college enrollment funnel from the ground up?
In our latest "Beyond the Brief" Conversation, Lauran Hundshamer, VP of Enrollment and Marketing at St. Catherine University, and Dean Gething, EVP of Online Enrollment Strategy at Carnegie, share how a multi-year partnership rebuilt an enrollment funnel from the ground up.
Here are 3 key takeaways from their playbook:
β’ Brand to Lead Gen: Shifting from brand marketing to lead generation helped St. Kate's regain a 20% enrollment decline and add 10% more on top, even in a tough recruiting climate.
β’ Speed to Lead: One counselor now owns each prospective student's journey end to end, critical when over 80% of adult and grad applicants are only considering two or three schools.
β’ First to the LLMs: St. Kate's paused SEO to chase AEO and GEO instead, betting on being the first university that shows up when students ask an AI chatbot for advice.
π Read the full interview here - https://tr.ee/partners-in-the-funnel - to learn about St. Kate's 120-year history, the $500 bet that lifted campus-visit conversion to 50%, and why Dean thinks AI will never replace the human moment in enrollment.