An economically healthy continuing education institution thrives or declines on its ability to offer courses that sufficient numbers of students want to enroll in and do in timely fashion. A key metric associated with this is the percentage of courses offered in any given quarter that are cancelled. Low cancellation rates contribute to institutional stability economically as well as to greater organizational productivity by sustaining efficient use of staff, facility, instructional, and marketing resources. Course cancellations can have a significant negative financial impact on the viability of an institution. To quantify this, University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) Extension in Silicon Valley conducted long-range tracking of the impact of early registration incentives against several key metrics. The director of its largest department, who eventually became the head of enrollment, initiated the effort, which showed that well-conceived, tightly implemented incentives could have a substantial beneficial impact on a continuing education operation.