2012
Jan 23

How can colleges increase enrollment while also raising their academic profile?

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by

Colleges and universities often struggle with what appear to be two opposing goals: Increasing enrollment and maintaining or improving the academic profile of their student body.When it comes to setting enrollment goals, many colleges and universities often wish to both increase the number of students they enroll while also increasing the academic quality of their student body. Unfortunately, drastically raising student enrollment while simultaneously raising the test scores and GPAs of new students is extremely challenging.

The highest ability students—say those in the top 10-25 percent of the class—have many more college options available to them than other students. That means that in order to increase enrollments of high ability students, campuses need to increase merit scholarships. Even if a campus has significant resources to commit to merit scholarships and achieve this growth, it will come at a cost—usually a high cost that will have an impact on discount rate and average net tuition revenue.

There is, however, a great way to improve your class profile without incurring the significant cost of pursuing the top quartile of students: growing enrollment in the second and third quartiles.

Before I address how to grow enrollment and raise the class profile, I want to discuss the challenge of raising the academic profile. Years ago one institution decided that the best way to raise the academic profile of the class was to simply cut off the bottom 10-15 percent of the entering class. Over three years they accomplished their goal of raising the profile. They moved from being a U.S. News and World Report regional liberal arts college into the national liberal arts category while also improving student retention slightly. Unfortunately their enrollment shrank by more than 150 students (about 15 percent) in those same three years, which also came at a significant cost for the institution. It took several years before they were able to reach the previous enrollment marks of 1050 and 1100 students.

It is critical for a campus that is interested in drastically raising enrollment and academic profile to use an aggressive yet balanced approach, focusing on growing the mid-quartiles. This means aggressive enrollment strategies for growth and some changes to the academic profile.

The institution should conduct research to determine the impact of raising standards on their previous class or two (how many students that were admitted and/or enrolled would consequently not be admitted/enrolled by raising the standard). In addition, research should be conducted to determine how retention will be impacted (typically increased) with a change in standards. Other data I would review would be the ACT EIS (Enrollment Information Services) or The College Board EPS (Enrollment Planning Service) to see what their current market share is for students who are in the new ACT range, and how that will need to change in order to grow new student enrollment.

Once these first two steps are completed, strategies must be designed and implemented to increase the funnel with additional inquires, applicants, and admits. Strategies that can help include:

  • Segmenting search to target upper profile students with different messages
  • Increasing scholarship levels (while still maintaining net revenue needs)
  • Targeting out-of-state students or students outside of traditional markets
  • Targeting high school honors programs
  • Holding a scholarship recognition day
  • Placing more emphasis on academics and faculty in recruitment communications and on the Web site
  • Stressing off-campus opportunities such as internships and study abroad
  • Promoting graduate school placements and outcomes
  • Developing high profile academic majors, pre-professional programs, or new majors and programs to support enrollment growth

Keep in mind that implementing these approaches can also raise additional challenges and concerns:

  • Increasing the admissions criteria will likely change your competition.
  • Increasing your admissions criteria will likely result in lower yields.
  • These changes could affect referrals from high school counselors, as students they have referred to your institution in the past may now not be admissible. This could affect alumni referrals as well, and both instances highlight the importance of communicating changes in admission criteria to key groups who provide referrals.
  • If you focus on raising the academic profile by focusing on the middle two quartiles, this will eliminate students from the bottom quartile. Also, this could affect certain student populations (legacy and full-pay, to cite two examples).

Despite these challenges, enrollment growth and academic profile increases are possible. I have a colleague at Noel-Levitz who, as director of admissions over a seven-year period, grew enrollment from 1080 to more than 1200, raised the average GPA a tenth and the average ACT a full point, increased diversity from 8 percent to 23 percent, and lowered the discount rate for six of those years from more than 63 percent to 53 percent.

Finally, it is important when making such a significant enrollment shift that you research the situation and make all decisions after analyzing the data. Examine your market, your financial aid and net revenue, your academic program demand, and your funnel management so you can not only uncover strategies for accomplishing these goals, but uncover potential challenges. Your campus will also need a strong strategic enrollment plan; aggressive marketing of your programs, majors, and scholarships; and an institutional strategic plan that will support the student body as it grows with appropriate academic advising, student services, residence halls, and other vital resources.

If you have any questions about how to start down this path toward a stronger academic profile, please e-mail me. It can seem like a daunting prospect, but with the right research and planning, it is a very achievable goal that can ultimately position your campus more strategically in today’s competitive college marketplace.

About the author

Craig Engel, senior vice president, works directly with campuses on the effective administration of their enrollment management programs. Offering over 20 years of hands-on experience in enrollment management, Mr. Engel’s career has focused exclusively on building, maintaining and shaping enrollments—first on campuses, and now as a consultant.

Read more about Craig’s experience and expertise »

Reach Craig by e-mail at craig-engel@noellevitz.com.

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Posted by Craig Engel

Posted in Enrollment Management Student Recruitment

  • Gil Rogers

    i.e. “raise the discount rate”.

  • http://twitter.com/robinteractive robinteractive

    Another approach is to increase the size of the funnel (yes, even within your primary recruiting market), raise admission standards in terms of academics, and be content with a lower yield rate. In the process you can maintain or even lower the discount rate while increasing academic averages and the size of the incoming class.

  • Gil Rogers

    Oh, agreed.  However that’s costly as well.  More names = more postage + more printing = more cost.  Why not focus on the “right” names and “expressed interest” and be strategic with outreach, thus avoiding lower yield (which no one seems to ‘really’ want).

  • Craig-engel

    You are correct that you must increase the size of your funnel, especially in the middle two quartiles, which is where I recommend you begin as you work to increase the profile. I also agree that using some kind of predictive modeling can help you build the funnel with students who closely resemble students who are a fit to your institution. Typically top quartile students are discounted at higher levels than second and third quartile students, which is another reason to pursure them.

  • http://twitter.com/robinteractive robinteractive

    The increased cost of more names + printing + postage can easily be offset by increased revenue from lower discount rates. But sometimes that is tough to accomplish when budgets are seen as silos.

    There are some colleges that realize the short-term and long-term benefits of increased revenue and a raised academic profile, even if lower yield is part of that equation.

    Prospective students don’t typically ask about yield rates. They do ask about academic averages (or, more to the point, what are my chances of being admitted?).

    And they definitely notice impressive buildings, pretty flowers, a range of campus dining options, etc., and they learn to appreciate high quality faculty in the classroom. It takes revenue to make these things happen, and these things help increase willingness to pay.

    For private colleges, yield is often a factor of net cost, not just fit or love of a given school. And if a school limits their discounting, they can still fill their incoming class if there are enough admitted students to support a lower yield. The more cynical way of phrasing this is denying students with aid, letting those with the willingness and/or ability to pay make it through the funnel.

    I’ll admit that this isn’t the approach of most colleges, and it isn’t the only workable approach. But it is an approach that can be effective.

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