If you’ve ever been tasked with writing an RFP, you know the feeling. Someone tells you to “just put together an RFP,” as though there's a universal playbook everyone else received. Before long, you're staring at a blank document, wondering what to include, what to leave out, and how to avoid creating a process that's frustrating for both your institution and potential partners.

Higher ed has a language all its own. Whether you’re new to the industry, stepping into a different role or venturing outside your usual area of expertise, keeping up with the jargon can feel like a full-time job.

“Student-centered” may be one of the most overused phrases in higher education. It sounds good. It implies that decisions are made with students in mind. And, in most cases, colleges use it because they genuinely believe it is true. But as brand language, “student-centered” does not do enough.

Faculty are some of higher education’s most powerful storytellers—but too often, their expertise stays hidden inside classrooms, labs, and academic journals.

The best brands do not make an institution sound like every other college with a better thesaurus. They stake a claim. They replace vague aspiration with evidence, texture and specificity. 

In this episode of Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO, host Jaime Hunt sits down with Abbigail Tumpey, Vice President for Institute Communications at Georgia Tech, to explore how AI is reshaping enrollment marketing, communications strategy, and institutional leadership. From synthetic audience testing to AI-powered workflow optimization, Abbigail shares how her team is moving beyond curiosity and embedding AI into the culture, systems, and daily operations of university communications.

If you've spent any time in higher ed marketing, you know the type. The person running enrollment campaigns solo, stretching a budget that wouldn't cover a single agency retainer and somehow still hitting their numbers. They're resourceful, strategic and battle-tested in ways most hiring committees never think to ask about.

Bringing in a guest speaker is an investment yet it's surprisingly easy to drop the ball on hosting, not out of bad intentions, but simply because no one has ever laid out what good hosting actually looks like.

The budget conversation happening right now will directly shape inquiry volume this summer, application pools this fall, and enrolled headcount next spring. What gets cut in April doesn’t show up as a problem until May of next year—and by then, the connection is invisible.

If your pitch strategy is still built primarily around traditional outlets, you’re missing a channel that's far better aligned with how modern audiences actually consume information and form opinions. Here’s why podcasts deserve a permanent place in your pitch mix.

Jaime Hunt sits down with Dr. Allison Steinke to unpack what it really takes to build a believable brand in higher education.

Colleges and universities enter public disputes trying to defend their reputation. But the act of entering the dispute publicly is often what damages it most. You’re not correcting the record; you’re extending the story.

The AI landscape has quietly gotten complicated. Here's my honest breakdown of what each tool does well, where it falls short and which one I think deserves more of your attention.

Colleges within larger universities often struggle to balance institutional brand consistency with market differentiation. A college-level brand platform helps define a clear value proposition and allows colleges to compete more effectively in specialized and competitive program markets.

The conversation explores the evolving role of prestige, the growing importance of outcomes and ROI, and what enrollment marketers must understand about parents, counselors and the modern college search process.

Jaime Hunt sits down with Jason Smith, Founder and Managing Director of OHO, to unpack how AI in higher education is fundamentally changing the way students search for colleges.

What if the biggest mistake in higher ed marketing is trying to impress the wrong audience?

If higher education marketing feels stuck, it’s not because marketers lack ideas. It’s because the ideas most likely to drive growth are often the least welcome.

This episode explores the tension between expectations and reality and unpacks how fractional CMOs can fill leadership gaps during key inflection points.

Graduate programs are too important to be an afterthought. Let’s invest in them like we mean it.