Some colleges are paying current students to post on social media

At Canisius University in Buffalo, New York, a handful of students on campus are known as the Griffluencers. They’re named after the school’s mascot, the golden griffin, and they’re paid to post on the school’s social media accounts.

One of them is 19-year-old Madison Duxbury. She took the job because she wanted to make the school’s accounts more hip. Or, since we are talking about appealing to young people, maybe the better word is “fire.”

“I was like, ‘OK, maybe I can help the school progress more into social media,’” Duxbury said. “Because obviously, being a teen during COVID and then after that, social media has been a huge part of everyone's life.”

One of her videos as a Griffluencer documents a typical day in her life. There’s music in the background, and you see her putting makeup on in the morning, going to anatomy class.

“I wanted to highlight [that] you can take time to yourself,” Duxbury said. “You can meditate. You can read. You can do your nails. You have time to do that while also going to your classes and doing your homework.”

Another of Duxbury’s videos provides a speed tour of the underground tunnels that link different buildings on campu.s “If someone has not toured here, they may look at the tunnel video, and be like, ‘Oh this school has tunnels in case there's a really bad snowstorm.’”

Duxbury also seems to understand the internet in a way that only people born after the year 2000 can. For example, sometimes she sees videos where people move their hands in a really animated way, and it feels kind of cringe.

“Very 2021, very dramatic,” she said. “But now, if we overdo it with the hand movements, people are like, ‘That's not what we do anymore.’”

That insight into how to connect with teenagers is one reason colleges hire current students to post. This is less important for, say, big flagship colleges, which have a lot of students posting organically about their school experiences. But for smaller schools that are also competing for a dwindling number of high schoolers, consultants say a strong social media presence is a crucial way to market to teenagers.

“If you’ve got a student that loves the place and wants to share great things about it, then go ahead and see if they're interested in being paid a couple hundred bucks a semester to share their story on social media,” said Jeff Schiffman, a senior strategic leader focused on enrollment and admissions at education consulting firm EAB.

Current students are uniquely positioned to do that storytelling.

“They're online. They know what's going on. They know what everyone likes,” said Kali Nati, Canisius’s social media manager. She launched the Griffluencer program two years ago.

At Canisius, the student influencers are paid New York state minimum wage ($16 an hour) and spend five to 10 hours a week creating content. The idea is to give future students a sense of what life could be like for them.

“I can't speak to a prospective student the way that a student actually can,” Nati said.

That insider look is something Taylor O'Keefe, a high school senior in central Connecticut, wants from a college.

“It gives you a better vibe for who the people are that go to that school,” she said. “You kind of get to think to yourself: ‘Would those be my people?’”

O’Keefe is in the process of applying to college, and day-in-the-life videos help her understand what students do in their downtime.

“‘I woke up. I went to class. I went to the gym. I hung out with my friends, and then I went to bed at a reasonable time.’ I think that sounds like a great day to me,” she said.

She also looks to social media for information about extracurriculars, like dance programs and Greek life.

O’Keefe’s opinion carries a lot of weight in part because teenagers like her are in increasingly short supply.

“This is the first true year of the demographic cliff,” said consultant Jeff Schiffman.

After the Great Recession, people had fewer kids. So, now, 18 years later, those non-existent kids aren’t applying to college.

“If you see a steep decline in the number of first-time freshmen enrolling at your institution, you have much smaller tuition revenue coming in,” said Schiffman.

Certain states are projected to be harder hit, including California, Illinois, and New York. To reach the existing teens, Schiffman said colleges need to be where they are: social media.

“It is a huge part of why certain schools are popular,” said Schiffman.

High school student Taylor O’Keefe acknowledged it does sometimes feel weird to be looking to Instagram when making such a big decision.

“It feels immature, almost. I feel like I should be looking at course catalogs and alumni reviews,” she said. “I sometimes forget that college is more than just the academics, and caring about your social life, and if you're going to be happy in a place, is also very important.”

O’Keefe does look at course catalogs — she said those resources are good for making sure she can, say, minor in Arabic.

But they don’t tell her what a random Thursday night might be like the way a TikTok video can.