ET&S Strategic Communications

In education, a cohort is a group of students who enter a program together and remain as a unit for the duration of their education, typically with a shared discipline.

In February 2022, Enterprise Technology & Services (ET&S) developed a cohort application for Granite State College (GSC) to allow some of its business partnerships to offer employees the opportunity to enroll in classes alongside their peers to learn job-related skills. Once businesses submit a request using the cohort application, the data is pushed to Salesforce and into Banner Student (as needed) for review by advisors. The employees are then assigned an advisor and all members of the employee group are treated as enrolled students. The overall goal is for the business to enroll these employees at GSC as full-time students.

This process allows Granite State College to tailor courses for businesses, and partnerships receive a discounted tuition rate. Providing a cohort allows employees additional incentive to enroll while learning among their colleagues. Network4Health used this cohort to offer classes to their employees. You can view their application here https://granite.tfaforms.net/283423

“This (cohort application) allowed for more seamless reporting and a faster turnaround as it automatically creates records in Banner,” said Joy Acker, Associate Director of Admissions Operations at GSC. “(It gave) us the ability to track whether a student has met prerequisites and provides a resource list to the registrar’s office to process registrations more efficiently each term.“