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Quoting from Stamats QuickTakes

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Strategy is not about doing more or doing better. It is not about being excellent (whatever that means). It is about being different.

Let me try this from another direction. If you offer the same basic programs as other colleges and universities, then you have 3,600 competitors. But if you refine or redefine who and what you do so that you are unlike your competitors, you become a unique, even distinctive choice. In doing so, you move from a position of vagueness to a position of clarity.

In most cases, a differentiation strategy will center around one or more of the following strategic variables:

Product: what programs you offer and how they are delivered; this includes curriculars and extracurriculars
Price: cost and how you use financial aid
Place: where you do what you do, including location and facilities

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For more on differentiation, check out our White Paper: Trout on Strategy: Differentiation in Higher Education.