SHBrooks has been in business since 1981.
We have been providing enrollment consulting services and software to clients in higher education for over 25 years, developing and applying new statistical techniques for the analysis of financial-aid packaging and student enrollment behavior at colleges and universities.
We were the first to provide econometric modeling and analysis of enrollment probabilities, and we were the first firm to provide an enrollment management data warehouse (ETools) that allows admissions staff and researchers to study enrollment trends, simulate the impacts of alternative financial-aid allocations, and predict enrollment outcomes.
Our work focuses on all elements of the enrollment funnel from prospects to admitted applicants to retention of enrolled students.
What We Do
Our primary, over-arching objective for engagements with clients in higher education is to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of each client’s existing financial-aid packaging for both new and continuing students in order to provide recommendations for improvement with a specific eye to concerns about revenue, academic profile and total enrollment including persistence of continuing students.
We have three primary areas of specialization.
Data Acquisition
For more than 25 years, we have acquired and validated admission and financial-aid data from client institutions. We have worked with many varied and diverse student information systems during that time and understand their complexity, strengths and limitations. We know how to integrate that data into a unified whole that allows for detailed research, analysis, modeling and prediction.
Statistical Techniques
We apply sophisticated statistical (including econometric) techniques to understand the enrollment behavior of admitted applicants and the retention behavior of continuing students. The models allow us to evaluate the price-sensitivity of each admit applicant and form the basis of our aid-optimization work.
Enrollment Data Warehouse
We provide a unified enrollment data warehouse: our web services software application, ETools, for research and analysis of trends and patterns in enrollment across your entire applicant and enrolled student pool. ETools captures and merges your historical information on admissions, financial aid, attitudinal surveys and any other reports or analyses that describe the behavior of your students.
Stephen H. Brooks
Founded SHBrooks and has served as president since its inception.
After initially focusing on government and corporate clients, today he has over 25 years experience specializing in higher-education enrollment management and has become one of the nation’s foremost experts in creating and applying econometric models to predict and analyze student enrollment. Prior to founding SHBrooks, he was a senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Before that, he was also a senior economist at Data Resources, Inc. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University (magna cum laude), and earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan.
