Product manager – student acquisition

Who You Are

You are passionate about helping students achieve their educational goals. You thrive in a competitive and collaborative team environment. You are comfortable working remotely and have experience collaborating with others in a virtual environment. You possess a strong attention to detail.

The Product Manager, Student Acquisition owns the strategy, roadmap, and measurable outcomes for the end-to-end student acquisition journey/value stream from prospective student through started student. This role serves as the strategic bridge among Marketing, Enrollment, Admissions, Student Services, and IT, translating institutional growth goals and student needs into a prioritized, outcome-based product roadmap. The Product Manager aligns people, processes, data, and technology across the student acquisition technology ecosystem. Success is measured through improved funnel conversion, faster decision-making and delivery, stronger operational efficiency, better prospective student experience, and clear accountability for the value delivered by technology investments.

Compensation

ACE is committed to paying a competitive wage while staying true to our mission of maintaining high quality, affordable programs for our students. The starting salary range for this position is $145,000 plus all full-time employees are eligible for an annual bonus. Offers vary depending on education, prior experience, and expertise being applied to the role.

What We Look for in the Ideal Candidate

• Demonstrates self-reliance by meeting/exceeding workflow needs.
• Demonstrates positive attitude and motivation, concern for students, teamwork, and excellent time management skills.
• Follows established processes as outlined by organization and leadership.
• Completes assigned duties based on daily business needs and individual skill set.
• Consistently produces a high volume of quality work.
• Capable, adapts as needed, to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
• Proven ability to work independently with limited supervision and with other department personnel.
• Must support and embrace the College’s Impact mission to improve the people and communities we serve through our civic engagement initiatives.
• Must have exceptional communication, organization, and time management skills.
• Must be "self-motivated" as well as creative and efficient in proposing solutions to complex, time-critical problems.
• Must be collaborative in driving decisions and a team-player.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a high attention to detail.
• Builds and maintains student satisfaction.
• Recognizes and anticipates student needs.

Day to Day Responsibilities

In this role you will wear different hats, but your skills will be especially essential in the following areas:

• Define and communicate the product vision, strategy, roadmap, and success measures for the Student Acquisition value stream, aligned with institutional enrollment, revenue, and student experience goals.
• Own the end-to-end prospect-to-started-student journey; use research, journey mapping, funnel data, and stakeholder feedback to identify friction, unmet needs, and improvement opportunities.
• Establish and monitor product objectives and key performance indicators, including speed-to-lead, stage conversion, application completion, yield, cycle time, adoption, data quality, and operational efficiency.
• Prioritize initiatives across the product ecosystem based on expected business value, student impact, risk, cost, effort, dependencies, and strategic alignment; make transparent trade-off recommendations.
• Translate business problems and desired outcomes into clear product requirements, acceptance criteria, and decision context for Product Owners, delivery teams, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Partner with Product Owners and technology teams to sequence delivery, manage cross-platform dependencies, validate releases, and confirm that delivered capabilities achieve intended outcomes.
• Guide product discovery, experimentation, usability testing, and continuous optimization; apply quantitative and qualitative evidence to product decisions.
• Ensure consistent funnel definitions, lead qualification rules, attribution, consent, and data flow across channels and platforms in partnership with data and business owners.
• Own the integrated product roadmap across CRM, marketing automation, digital experience, inquiry and application, communications, workflow, integration, analytics, and reporting capabilities.
• Evaluate platform capabilities, vendors, and investment options; develop business cases and recommendations that address value, total cost, scalability, reliability, integration, and technical debt.
• Align Marketing, Enrollment, Admissions, Student Services, IT, and executive stakeholders around priorities, decisions, risks, timelines, and measurable outcomes.
• Partner with operational leaders on process design, service levels, adoption, training, change management, and readiness for peak enrollment cycles.
• Ensure product decisions support FERPA, privacy, consent, accessibility, security, data governance, responsible AI, and other applicable institutional requirements.
• Communicate roadmap progress, product performance, financial impact, risks, dependencies, and decisions to executive and operational audiences.

Qualifications and Education Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in business, technology, marketing, analytics, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Five or more years of experience in product management, digital product strategy, business technology, CRM, enrollment technology, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience owning a product strategy and roadmap across multiple platforms, business functions, and stakeholder groups.
• Experience using product discovery, customer research, journey mapping, experimentation, and data analysis to prioritize work and improve measurable outcomes.
• Strong working knowledge of CRM and lead management, marketing automation, digital experience, workflow, integration, analytics, and reporting capabilities.
• Proven ability to define meaningful product metrics, interpret funnel and operational data, build business cases, and evaluate value, cost, risk, and trade-offs.
• Experience partnering with Product Owners and Agile delivery teams; ability to translate strategy and business problems into outcome-based requirements without prescribing technical solutions.
• Executive-level communication, facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to drive decisions across competing priorities.
• Experience with vendor evaluation, contract or service performance, implementation partners, and third-party platform dependencies.
• Knowledge of privacy, accessibility, security, data governance, and responsible AI considerations for digital products.
• Experience in higher education, student recruitment, enrollment, admissions, or a regulated consumer journey is strongly preferred.
• Product management certification is preferred but not required.

Our Commitment to Employees

Just as we strive to empower our students for success, we also aim to enrich the lives of our employees. For 6 consecutive years, ACE was recognized as one of Indiana’s Best Places to Work, winning the #1 spot for medium-sized companies in 2020. In addition, ACE has earned national recognition since 2022 for being a USA Today Top Workplace. As a virtual first organization, we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a family-like inclusive work environment. For our full-time employees, we offer the following benefits:

• Medical, dental, & vision Insurance
• HSA and FSA options
• Paid parental leave
• Paid volunteer time
• Tuition reimbursement & reduction programs
• Generous PTO
• 401k and employer match
• Full-service wellness and EAP program
• Employee recognition and awards programs
• Employer paid life & AD&D insurance
• Short-term disability
• Employer paid long-term disability
• And more…

Physical Demands

The physical demand described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to communicate with and receive communications from students and ACE employees in real time using online and other electronic media.

Commitment to Culture

At American College of Education, we’re all about building a one-of-a-kind, supportive community where everyone—students, faculty, and staff—can thrive. Guided by our mission and values, we focus on everything from innovative curriculum design to personalized instruction and student support to intentional planning, inclusive initiatives, and strategic resource allocation. We’re dedicated to creating an environment that celebrates freedom of expression, diversity of thought, open dialogue, and mutual respect. We believe in fostering a sense of belonging and wellness so that every member of our ACE family feels empowered, valued, and ready to reach their full potential. Together, we’re creating a vibrant, resilient, and connected learning community where everyone matters.

Additional Notes

This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice. Employees are increasingly integrating AI into their roles, demonstrating its potential to boost efficiency, accuracy, and productivity. By utilizing AI technologies, we can streamline processes, gain valuable insights from data, and automate routine tasks, which allows employees to concentrate on more strategic and creative aspects of their work. While AI is a beneficial tool in the workplace, if its use—such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Copy.ai, etc.—accounts for more than 50% of any work assignments or job responsibilities, it will need to be reported to a direct leader. Internet bandwidth speeds from an employee's remote work location must be a minimum of 50Mbps download speeds and 5Mbps upload speeds. Please note if the bandwidth is shared across multiple devices (tablets, computer, streaming, phone, etc.) you will need higher overall speeds. You can test the speed of your connection by visiting speedtest.net Purchase, setup, installation, support, and ongoing maintenance of reliable internet service is the responsibility of the individual. American College of Education seeks to attract and retain a diverse staff consistent with its diverse student body and surrounding communities. At this time we cannot consider candidates residing in Alaska, Washington D.C., Massachusetts, South Dakota, or Alabama. ACE is an Equal Opportunity Employer.