When Your Distinctives Disappear: A Lesson from Southwest Airlines for Schools

For the past fifteen years, since I launched Enrollment Catalyst, I’ve flown almost exclusively on Southwest Airlines.

If you travel often, you probably have your preferred airline. For me, it became Southwest fairly quickly after I started my consulting work. When you’re flying across the country multiple times a month, you start to appreciate anything that makes travel a little simpler.

Southwest felt simpler.

Not because they always had the lowest prices. Not because of loyalty points. The main reason I chose Southwest was simple.

They were clearly different from every other airline.

Two things defined that difference.

First, they always said, “Bags fly free.” At a time when most airlines were charging for checked luggage, Southwest made it part of their brand promise. Travelers knew exactly what to expect.

Second, they didn’t assign seats. When you boarded the plane, you simply chose any available seat. There were no complicated seat maps and no extra fees for preferred seating.

Those policies were more than operational decisions. They were distinctives. They helped define Southwest in a crowded and competitive industry.

Recently, however, Southwest made two significant changes.

They now charge for checked bags. And they have moved to assigned seating with the option to pay for specific seats.

In other words, the very things that made Southwest stand out are now gone.

Now, every company has to make business decisions. There may be financial reasons behind these changes that make perfect sense in the boardroom.

But as a longtime customer, I can’t help but ask a simple question.

Why would a company intentionally give up the very things that made them different?

When you give up what makes you different, you eventually become just another option.

Interestingly, the new boarding process also seems slower. When seats weren’t assigned, passengers simply boarded and sat down. Now people stop to check seat numbers, rearrange luggage, and sometimes search for overhead bin space when the bins near their assigned seat are already full.

It’s a small detail, but it illustrates something important.

When you change a distinctive, you often change more than you expect.

What This Has to Do With Schools

Watching Southwest walk away from two of its most recognizable distinctives made me think about something I see frequently when working with schools.

Many private, independent, and faith-based schools struggle with differentiation.

If you visit several school websites in the same community, you’ll often see the same phrases repeated again and again.

Small class sizes.Caring teachers.Academic excellence.A safe environment.

All of those things are important. In fact, they should be expected.

But they are not distinctives.

They are the basic expectations parents already assume a good school will provide.

When every school sounds the same, families have a difficult time understanding what truly makes one school different from another.

And when schools cannot clearly articulate what makes them different, families often begin comparing them on things like tuition, location, facilities, or convenience.

When Schools Lose Their Distinctives

That’s a difficult place for a school to compete.

There will almost always be another school that is closer, newer, or less expensive.

But when a school clearly communicates what makes it unique, the conversation changes.

Distinctives Change the Conversation

Schools that stand out in their communities usually have something in common.

They have taken the time to clarify what makes their school unique.

Sometimes it’s a distinctive educational philosophy. It might be classical education, project-based learning, or a deeply integrated faith formation model.

Sometimes it’s the way the school builds community with families. Parents feel known, connected, and part of something meaningful.

Sometimes it’s the student journey itself. Leadership development, service learning, capstone experiences, or other programs that help parents see how their child will grow over time.

When those distinctives are clear and consistently communicated, something important happens.

The conversation shifts from “Which school is better?” to “Which school is the best fit for our child?”

That’s when mission-fit enrollment begins to take shape.

A Question Worth Asking

One question I often ask school leaders is this:

If a prospective parent visited three schools in your community this month, what would they clearly remember about yours?

Not better.

Different.

Because in a crowded marketplace, the schools that stand out are usually the schools that have taken the time to clarify what truly makes them unique.

The Lesson

Southwest built a powerful brand by doing a few things differently from everyone else.

Those distinctives made the airline easy to understand and easy to choose.

Schools face a similar challenge.

When schools try to look like everyone else in the market, they often blend into the background. But when they lean into what makes them unique, families can more easily recognize when the school is the right fit.

In a crowded marketplace, schools that try to look like everyone else rarely stand out.

And when you don’t stand out, families have no clear reason to choose you.

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