In the days after Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast, hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the nation announced that they would open their doors to an estimated 100,000 students whose campuses had closed for the semester. But with the enrollment offers came tight deadlines, logistical challenges, and tough questions.
How would the colleges evaluate applicants? How would the students pay their tuition? Were there enough rooms to go around?
“It’s been chaotic,” said David Hawkins, director of public policy for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, known as Nacac. “We’re urging colleges to remain flexible with students. We’ve never seen anything on this scale.”
Following the hurricane, the American Council on Education asked colleges enrolling displaced students to admit applicants on a temporary basis, so they would remain students of their home institutions. The council also recommended that colleges not charge the students tuition if they had already paid tuition elsewhere, and charge the home institution’s rates to students who had not yet paid (and hold those funds in escrow).
Several colleges affected by the hurricane advised their students to take a semester off, while others encouraged them to accept temporary spots at other institutions. Because many colleges were already in their second week of classes when the storm hit, however, administrators feared displaced students could not catch up on course assignments unless they enrolled immediately. (Many colleges set September 9 as a deadline.)
A Relief to Many Students
The offers were a relief to students like Amanda McCree, a junior from Tulane University who was among the so-called emergency applicants at Texas A&M University, which had enrolled more than 100 students by 10 a.m. on September 5 and promised to enroll up to 900 more by the end of the week.
The pressure to act quickly rattled other evacuees. “You spend all your junior and senior year in high school looking at colleges and evaluating your options, and now you have to make the same decision in two days,” said Kasia Haupt, a senior at Loyola University New Orleans. Ms. Haupt worried about losing the $6,000 scholarship she had received from Loyola. She chose to attend its sister institution, Loyola University Chicago, this fall because it has courses that fit her communications major.
Terry Richards, the Chicago university’s associate vice president for enrollment, said he had to make a financial leap of faith on behalf of displaced students like Ms. Haupt. The college accepted them first and agreed to work out the payments later. Many applicants had fled Louisiana and Mississippi without their financial records, and their home institutions could not help process loan statements and other necessary paperwork.
“Our initial plan is to try to hold students as harmless as possible and honor any scholarships and financial aid they received at other institutions,” Mr. Richards said. As of late last week, Loyola had not denied admission to any new applicants, 215 of which had registered for classes.
Some public universities offered free tuition to in-state students, but not all colleges could afford to do so. At Texas Southern University, Hassan Jamil, assistant vice president for enrollment services, said he had approved more than 330 requests for admission from affected students, 154 of which had enrolled. Although the university did not charge students upfront, it could not guarantee that students would not have to pay later.
“We do not have the authority or resources to offer them free tuition,” Mr. Jamil said. “We are trying very hard to make it clear to them that they will be held responsible for payments if their university does not refund their money.”
Some colleges, including Franklin Pierce College, in New Hampshire, and John Brown University, in Arkansas, offered displaced students full tuition, room, and board. Great Basin College, in Elko, Nev., offered to fly in as many as 50 students, enroll them in classes, and put them up in the community. Harvard University said it would admit 25 students at no charge.
Many colleges relaxed their admissions requirements, not even asking students about their grades. Other institutions, such as the University of Texas at Austin, announced that they would offer admission to “academically qualified” students. N. Bruce Walker, the university’s director of admissions, said he asked applicants about their grades over the telephone -- and took them at their word. In a few cases, he said, it became obvious that students would not succeed at Austin, and he urged them to apply elsewhere.
Judy Muir, an independent college counselor in Houston, advised her clients -- more than 100 of whom were displaced by the hurricane -- to chose a college that fits their needs.
“There is a big emotional risk to students who attend a competitive college and are unqualified,” Ms. Muir said. “You don’t want to overwhelm students or strike a blow to their self-esteem when they’re already feeling beaten down.”
While colleges scrambled to help students, officials at Nacac and other higher-education associations were discussing the hurricane’s long-term effect on college admissions. Because some colleges damaged by the hurricane may not reopen by January, for instance, thousands of students may seek to officially transfer into their temporary colleges.
Community-college officials said the storm had hit their students -- many of whom lost homes -- particularly hard, and predicted that many could not afford to enroll elsewhere.
Ms. Haupt, the Loyola student, did not expect to return to New Orleans. For seniors like her, the prospect of starting over at a new campus was particularly hard. At least Loyola’s freshmen, Ms. Haupt said, “didn’t have a chance to really get attached to the place before they had to say goodbye.”
Lawrence Biemiller contributed to this report.
http://chronicle.com Section: Special Report Volume 52, Issue 4, Page A20
