Student Enrolment & Intake Forecasts
This use case explains how to model student enrolment, intakes and cohorts for private and vocational education providers in Model Reef.
You will:
Represent campuses, programs and intakes in the branch and category structure.
Build drivers for enquiries, applications, offers and enrolments.
Model intakes and student cohorts over multiple terms or years.
Connect enrolment forecasts to revenue, staffing, facilities and cash.
Model Reef is not a student information or CRM system. It works at planning level using aggregated intake and cohort assumptions, not individual student records.
When to use this pattern
Use this pattern when:
Tuition and fee income is driven by intakes, cohorts and progression.
You need to plan revenue and capacity across campuses and programs.
Enrolment risk and conversion are key to financial performance.
You want one consistent model for enrolment, teaching cost and profit.
It combines well with:
Course or Program Profitability
Teaching Staff Allocation Model
Campus or Program Consolidation
Build a Recurring Revenue Forecast
Architecture overview
Set up campuses and programs
In the branch tree, create a structure that matches your organisation, for example:
Group
Campus - City A
Campus - City B
Online Campus
Within each campus, represent programs using categories and variable naming such as:
Revenue - Tuition - Program A - Domestic.
Revenue - Tuition - Program A - International.
Revenue - Tuition - Program B - Domestic.
This keeps campus and program views clean and supports consolidation later.
Build funnel drivers for demand and conversion
In the Data Library, create drivers for each program and intake cycle, for example:
Enquiries per period.
Applications per period.
Offers made per period.
Acceptances or enrolments per period.
You can either:
Enter each stage directly from marketing and admissions plans, or
Model conversion rates between stages, such as Application Rate, Offer Rate and Accept Rate.
Compute intakes as the number of new students enrolled per intake period. You can maintain separate drivers for domestic and international students or for different channels if needed.
Create cohort and progression logic
Once you know how many students start in each intake, represent their progression as cohorts. For each program, define drivers for:
Standard duration in terms or years.
Progression rates between levels or years.
Retention and drop out rates per stage.
Completion rates.
You can approximate active student numbers per period with cohort style logic, for example:
Active Students in Year 1 = New Intake minus Early Dropouts.
Active Students in Year 2 = Prior Year 1 Progressing minus Year 2 Dropouts.
Keep this at program level rather than individual course level unless you need more detail. You can differentiate full time and part time loads using separate cohorts or load factors.
Link student numbers to tuition revenue
For each program and student type, create Revenue variables such as:
Revenue - Tuition - Program A - Domestic.
Revenue - Tuition - Program A - International.
Attach drivers for:
Tuition fee per student per term or per year.
Scholarships or discount percentages.
Load factors for part time students if applicable.
Then express revenue as:
Tuition Revenue = Active Students × Fee per Student × Load Factor.
Use timing settings to align revenue recognition with delivery periods, for example by term or by academic year. Cash timing will then be handled via delays that represent when fees are billed and paid.
Model fee payments, funding and cash timing
Set delays and timing to reflect how and when you are paid, for example:
Upfront payments at the start of term.
Instalments across the term.
Deferred payment arrangements or loan payments.
Government funding or subsidies paid on census date or completion.
Model Reef will then create receivables and cashflows consistent with these assumptions. This allows you to see the impact of growth, discounting and retention on cash and working capital as well as revenue.
Use scenarios for demand, pricing and retention
Clone the base model into scenario models to test:
Different enquiry, application and conversion outcomes.
Alternative pricing and scholarship strategies.
Changes in retention and progression by program.
New program launches or program closures.
Shifts between on campus and online delivery.
In each scenario, adjust:
Funnel and cohort drivers.
Fee levels and discount policies.
Intake timing and size.
Funding and payment timing assumptions.
Compare scenarios using:
Tuition revenue by program and campus.
Total students and full time equivalent load.
Cashflow and working capital profiles.
Capacity and staffing implications when combined with teaching models.
Check your work
Intake, conversion and retention assumptions align with recent history.
Tuition revenue reconciles with prior year accounts when historic drivers are applied.
Scenario outcomes are credible and interpretable for recruitment, academic and finance stakeholders.
Cohort logic is simple enough to maintain for your planning horizon.
Troubleshooting
Related guides
Last updated