Last week FE Week published a piece by our COO arguing that FE colleges are losing students not because demand isn't there, but because the recruitment infrastructure isn't built for the job.
The line that drew the most reaction: "almost no usable data."
It's a strong claim - one that came from conversations with FE colleges about how their recruitment actually works. And on 26 March, it was confirmed in the room.
TL;DR
FE colleges are losing students not because demand isn't there, but because recruitment infrastructure - tracking, data, follow-up - is broken. That was made concrete at our forum on 26 March. Here's what the day surfaced - and what it points to.
We brought together admissions and marketing professionals from across the sector for a full-day forum on the real state of FE admissions. Not a product demo. Not a webinar. A room full of people who do this work every day, speaking honestly about what isn't working - and what they need.
When teams described only discovering bounced emails by manually checking, said source-to-enrolment tracking is manual at best and impossible at worst, and explained that offer acceptance rates are pieced together from spreadsheets and gut feel - that was the claim made concrete.
But the day wasn't defined by what's broken. It was defined by clarity - about what good looks like, what's achievable, and what the sector genuinely needs.
The problems are well known: reminders chased manually, late applicants arriving at enrolment in numbers teams described as "not scalable," and email quietly failing a generation of students who simply don't use it the same way.
What was striking wasn't the problems - it was how clearly the room could articulate the fixes. Automated reminders. Open and bounce tracking. SMS and WhatsApp for time-sensitive updates. A faster lane for late applicants. The gap between what exists and what's needed is smaller than the frustration in the room might suggest.
One thread ran through everything: the relationship with prospective students is starting earlier. Several colleges are now engaging from Year 10 - effectively running a two-year admissions cycle. That requires a CRM mindset, not just an admissions tool.
The conversation quickly moved beyond features into something more fundamental. The shift that matters isn't AI that answers questions - it's AI that takes actions: creating tasks, filtering applicants, drafting communications, flagging things before you notice them. The principle the room landed on: AI drafts, humans approve, especially while trust is being established.
The other idea that landed hard was the source-to-enrolment pipeline - being able to see, in one view, where every student came from and how they converted. Significant not just operationally, but for making the case for marketing investment internally.
Admissions isn't just an administrative function. It's marketing, relationship building, and student support - happening simultaneously, across a journey that can span two or more years. The colleges that will pull ahead are the ones building relationships before the application window opens, communicating on channels students actually use, and using technology to make the process feel personal at scale.
The forum made clear what good looks like. On 16 April, we're showing how it works.
Join us for a free webinar - Meet Admissions+: leads management built for FE - where we'll walk through how colleges are capturing every enquiry, automating nurture journeys, and getting real-time visibility of their pipeline from first contact to enrolment.
If you're an admissions manager, head of sixth form, or FE leader trying to get a handle on recruitment for 2026/27, it's worth an hour.