Case Study: Northwestern Michigan College achieves increased online registrations and streamlined continuing-education enrollment with Ellucian Elevate

Searching for an enrollment solution that improves efficiency and yields actionable data

Northwestern Michigan College, a community college in Traverse City serving about 5,400 students, needed to modernize a cumbersome, paper‑and‑phone registration process for its diverse non‑credit and continuing education programs. Seeking self‑service enrollment with ERP integration, the college chose Ellucian and its Ellucian Elevate™ solution (with required integration to Ellucian Banner®).

Ellucian implemented Elevate (cloud‑hosted) to enable online self‑registration, course categorization, search, and consolidated student records across credit and non‑credit programs. The change drove measurable gains: online registrations rose from about 10% to 38% overall (youth programs hit 60% online), current sessions reached 41% online, peak phone calls fell from ~20/hour to 6–7/hour, and refund processing went from hours to minutes—freeing staff for marketing and improving tracking and analytics. Ellucian’s Banner integration and support delivered the operational efficiencies and visibility NMC needed.

Northwestern Michigan College

Donald Cunningham

Director