Higher education has a branding problem—but not the kind you might think. Institutions love to brand services, programs and resources with unique, creative names that distinguish them from competitors. Yet this very impulse toward differentiation creates barriers for the learners they aim to serve.
When every institution calls its one-stop student service center something different—from “Success Hub” to “Navigator Center” to “Student Solutions”—learners lose the ability to quickly identify and access the support they need, especially when transferring between institutions.
Consider how other industries grow and scale: They rely on common vocabularies that allow consumers to make informed comparisons. When discussing phones, whether iPhone or Android, we understand the basic functionality and purpose, even as features vary. In contrast, across 4,500 higher education institutions, we see two problematic trends: over-branding identical educational offerings as unique products, and using identical terminology to describe fundamentally different offerings.
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