Competitiveness increased even as the number of students applying ebbed, study finds
The oft-heard complaint that college graduates of a generation ago could not get
ALSO SEE: Acceptance Rates at 4-Year Institutions |
into their alma maters if they applied today has some new numbers to back it up.
A new study of trends in college admissions shows that even as the number of high-school graduates declined over the past two decades, competition for college enrollment has grown significantly, prompting increasingly aggressive admissions practices at many colleges.
The report, “Trends in College Admission 2000,” deals with three major issues: demographics, standards, and equity. It was conducted by ACT Inc., the Association for Institutional Research, the College Board, the Educational Testing Service, and the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The study was based on surveys of more than 3,000 colleges, as well as on data from the U.S. Department of Education and other sources. Similar surveys were also conducted in 1992, 1985, and 1979.
While college officials, guidance counselors, and students don’t need a mountain of data to tell them that admissions decisions are made in an increasingly competitive environment, the new study provides a detailed picture of admissions trends -- and a glimpse of what the enrollment picture might look like in the near future.
Fluctuating Enrollments
The study demonstrates that long-term predictions can be tricky, however. At the time of the 1979 survey, some higher-education officials were concerned that the projected decline in the number of high-school graduates would compromise academic standards.
“One fear was that colleges would reduce standards because of the shortage of students -- that they would start taking whoever they could get,” says Hunter M. Breland, project director of the new study and a senior research scientist at the Educational Testing Service.
The subsequent demographic shifts were stark: Between 1985 and 1991, for example, the number of high-school graduates decreased by nearly 200,000, making the total decline since 1979 almost 700,000. Yet first-time, first-year college enrollments during that same period decreased by only 14,000 students.
Societal and economic changes partly explain why enrollments did not plummet, Mr. Breland said. The study found that over the past 20 years, the proportion of high-school graduates enrolling in college during the fall of the year in which they graduated increased significantly. In 1979, only about half of high-school graduates went straight to college -- but by the late 1990s, the proportion had increased to about 62 percent.
A similar leap also took place among minority students: Immediate enrollment of black students increased from 45 percent in 1979 to almost 60 percent in the late 1990s, while the figure for Hispanic students increased from 40 percent to more than 50 percent.
What’s more, many students began applying to a greater number of colleges. During the same period, the average number of applications filed by students grew to 3.2 from 2.4 per student for four-year public institutions and to 4.4 from 3.3 per student for four-year private colleges.
In part because of those increases, colleges saw significant declines in their “yield” rates -- the percentage of admitted students who enroll at a particular college -- meaning that institutions had to admit more students to fill their classes. The average yield at four-year public institutions from 1970 to 2000 fell to about 46 percent from 56 percent, and that at private colleges to about 33 percent from 41 percent.
Colleges responded to the demographic changes by increasing the scope and complexity of their marketing and recruitment practices, the study shows.
The most-utilized recruitment technology in 2000 was Web-based services, with 86 percent of colleges reporting “very frequent” use. The percentage of institutions using telephone calls to recruit students increased to 60 percent in 2000 from 43 percent in 1985. During that time, the proportion of institutions using toll-free telephone lines for calls from such students increased to 63 percent from 48 percent.
Since the mid-1980s, four-year institutions have increasingly turned to the College Board’s Student Search Service and the ACT’s Educational Opportunity Service to contact prospective students by direct mail.
The study also notes an increase in the number of colleges offering non-need-based financial aid for students, with 36 percent of four-year institutions reporting that the dollar average of non-need awards had increased over the previous five years. Even so, since 1992 the average percentage of first-year students whose demonstrated financial needs were fully met has dropped (except at two-year institutions).
The study reports that responsibility for setting admissions policies has become less centralized. “As public institutions are operating with more-limited resources, more policies are being decided at the state level, taking some degrees of planning and freedom away from the individual institutions,” says James L. Maxey, an assistant vice president for research at ACT, who worked on the study.
Accompanying the intensified competition for students has been a greater policy focus on standards in higher education. The percentage of colleges classified as “competitive,” which is the highest category of selectivity, and “selective,” the intermediate category, increased among both private and public institutions, while fewer were classified as “open door” institutions.
Although four-year public institutions did not report a significant change in their admissions requirements, the majority of admissions officials at four-year private institutions said that their criteria -- including standardized-test scores and high-school grade-point averages -- were higher in 2000 than five years previously, and that their overall acceptance rates had declined. The study’s figures bear out those reports: The overall acceptance rate for private colleges declined to 60 percent in 1999 from 68 percent in 1992. The rate for four-year public institutions was the same in 1999 as in 1992 (68 percent).
The study also found some long-term trends in the importance of admissions factors. The proportion of institutions indicating that high-school GPA or class rank was “very important” has increased steadily since 1979, while the percentage of those indicating that GPA or rank is the “single most important” factor has steadily declined. By contrast, the study found, “the overall importance of admissions-test scores appears to have increased since 1979.”
Achieving Equity?
The study found that the representation of American Indian, Asian, and Hispanic students has risen appreciably since 1985, while the representation of black and white students among first-time, first-year classes has declined. The study notes that some of those changes, however, are probably related to a sizable increase in the number of students who do not disclose their racial or ethnic identity.
Between 1985 and 1999, amid increasing application rates, acceptance rates declined for all groups except white students at private colleges, whose rates rose. Asian-American students submitted more applications in 1999 than did any other group, with an average of 6.8 applications per student to public institutions and 9.6 to private ones. However, only 57 percent of Asian-Americans’ applications to public colleges and 46 percent of those to private colleges were accepted in 1999.
Black students submitted an average of 5.8 applications per student to public institutions and 6.2 to private colleges, but they had the lowest acceptance rate at public institutions (47 percent). Their acceptance rate at private colleges (50 percent) was slightly higher than that of Asian-American students.
The application rates of Hispanic students, too, increased considerably between 1985 and 1999, while their acceptance rates declined to 57 percent from 69 percent at public colleges and to 52 percent from 59 percent at private colleges.
The researchers note that the decline in the number of minority students in some public institutions is probably related to the affirm-ative-action challenges of the late 1990s.
The study projects a gradual increase in the number of high-school graduates until about 2008 or 2009, when the number is expected to peak at 3.2 million, only slightly more than the previous peak of 3.1 million, in 1978. The increases are expected to vary from state to state, with the largest anticipated in Arizona, California, Florida, New York, and Texas.
Yet there will be key demographic shifts. While the number of white undergraduates is projected to rise to 10 million by 2015 from 9.5 million in 1995, the representation of white students as a percentage of all undergraduates will drop to 62.8 percent, from 70.6 percent in 1995. In 10 states, the number of white undergraduates -- not just the percentage -- is projected to decrease. Nationally, black, Hispanic, and Asian-American students are projected to represent 80 percent of the increase in undergraduates.
The study concludes that improving equity for minority students will remain a significant challenge.
A report of the study is available at the Association for Institutional Research’s Web site (http://www.airweb.org/page.asp?page=347).
ACCEPTANCE RATES AT 4-YEAR INSTITUTIONS |
| 4-year public | | 4-year private |
| 1999 acceptance rates | Percentage- point change since 1985 | 1999 acceptance rates | Percentage- point change since 1985 |
Total | 68% | -4 | 60% | -2 |
American Indian | 68% | -8 | 59% | -4 |
Asian | 57% | -9 | 46% | -2 |
Black | 47% | -18 | 50% | -11 |
Hispanic | 57% | -12 | 52% | -7 |
White | 70% | -2 | 63% | +3 |
Nonresident alien | 47% | n/a | 30% | n/a |
Unknown | 75% | +14 | 54% | +8 |
Note: Between 1992 and 1999, the percentage of students who did not disclose their ethnic identity increased considerably at both private and public institutions. |
SOURCE: “Trends in College Admissions 2000" survey |
http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 49, Issue 14, Page A30