The number of first-time and transfer students who have paid deposits to attend Coker University this fall is nearly 5 percent higher than at the same time last year.
Normally, that would be great news. But Natalie Harder, president of the small private college in South Carolina, isn’t certain that all those students will show up.
“Our preliminary numbers are up,” Harder said, “but to be frank, I don’t necessarily trust them.”
May is traditionally when colleges gain clarity about their incoming classes. This year, those enrollment projections have a big asterisk.
That’s because the number of federal-aid applications is significantly lower than in past years, leading to fears that fewer students will go to college at all this fall.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is required for students to qualify for Pell Grants, federal student loans, and federal work-study dollars. Colleges also use the information to determine how much institutional aid they will offer, as do many states.
The FAFSA, as it’s called, was required to be shortened and redesigned under a 2020 law that was meant to simplify the application and make it faster and easier for students to complete. But the U.S. Department of Education did not finish that overhaul in time for the usual admissions cycle that colleges use. The new form finally debuted in January, and technical snafus have persisted ever since.
Admissions offices are a little scared to believe their own numbers.
Instead of making financial-aid offers to students by early spring, along with offers of admission, most colleges have had to improvise, hoping that students would signal an intent to enroll without a complete understanding of how much they would actually have to pay.
Now there is widespread uncertainty about how many of those students will show up for fall classes, said David A. Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC.
The situation could not only disrupt the educational journeys of students, but also lead to deep enrollment and budget shortfalls, especially at colleges that are heavily dependent on tuition.
“Admissions offices are a little scared to believe their own numbers,” Hawkins said.
‘I Can’t Relax Paying Our Bills’
While FAFSA completions have improved in recent weeks, numbers remain far below last year. Nearly half of high-school seniors submitted the form by the beginning of May 2023; just 40 percent of them had done so this year. High schools with large shares of low-income and minority students are faring worst of all. In addition to a decline in aid applications, the Education Department has struggled to get the correct calculations to colleges even when students did submit the form.
Many colleges have responded by extending the usual May 1 deposit deadline. NACAC found that 60 percent of its 514 members were giving students more time to make a decision. Fifteen percent said they were allowing extensions on a case-by-case basis.
At Coker University, new students and parents had “some expectation that colleges should relax the deadline,” said Harder, the president, “but I can’t relax paying our bills.”
Some colleges have also sent out estimated-aid packages based on their own calculations, instead of waiting for the federal government.
Coker, for example, used grade-point averages to tell students what kind of merit aid they might get from the university, as well as from the state.
But there are limits to doing estimates yourself, Harder acknowledged, because those don’t account for federal aid. Nearly half of Coker’s students are eligible for Pell Grants, and two-thirds receive federal loans. University officials were “honest about what we didn’t know,” Harder said.
At Western New England University, a private institution in Massachusetts, officials worked with families individually to give a fuller picture of what financial aid students might receive, said Gregory Matthews, vice president for enrollment management.
“We determined we might not need the FAFSA to determine the aid award,” said Matthews, who declined to give specifics of that process.
The effort required more time from staff, Matthews said, but it may have paid off: The university, which enrolled 2,400 undergraduates in 2023, has 109 more deposits than at the same time last year — 944 compared with 835. “We essentially threw out what we knew before,” he said. “If we do it the same way, we’ll be in the same boat as everyone else.”
“Other colleges in the area have not done as well,” he added.
At Goldey-Beacom College, a private institution in Delaware, administrators chose not to provide estimated-aid packages because of concerns that prospective students would assume that those amounts were guaranteed, said Eric Johnson, director of financial aid.
Randle Reed, director of admissions at Goldey-Beacom, said the college sought to quell students’ concerns about educational costs by explaining that most of its students pay off their debt within three years of graduation.
Looming over all conversations about colleges’ financial concerns is the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. The enrollment declines that began in the fall of 2020 are a painful reminder of what could come next, said Harder, who became president of Coker that June.
A Nail-Biting Experience
Despite the positive fall 2024 projections from college officials who spoke to The Chronicle, Hawkins, of NACAC, said the reality for many campuses is far more dire. Some colleges have told him that deposits are 20 to 40 percent below last year’s numbers.
The admissions process was already a nail-biting experience for many college officials, who are increasingly struggling to meet tuition-revenue targets after more than a decade of enrollment declines nationally. This year, that’ll be even harder, Hawkins said.
Among the most-pressing concerns are that students who have committed to one college may get a late aid offer from another college and change their minds. Better-known and wealthier colleges that may have some spots open could also actively recruit to fill their class — at the expense of institutions that cannot offer as much financial aid.
Students from low-income families might not show up at all, even if they have said they intend to enroll or made a deposit, said Jerry Ross, vice president for enrollment management at Marshall University, a public institution in West Virginia that’s experienced a recent surge in enrollment. The university has held campus workshops to encourage students to complete the FAFSA forms.
Nearly 41 percent of West Virginia’s high-school seniors submitted a FAFSA this year, which puts it 17th among the states. But the decline in submissions this year — more than 24 percent — is among the nation’s worst.
Jim Justice, West Virginia’s Republican governor, declared a state of emergency last month and waived the FAFSA requirement for students to receive state aid. Instead, the state has created its own website for students to apply for money from West Virginia.
As is often the case, public flagships and selective institutions with plenty of financial aid are likely to see little impact from the situation, said Robert Kelchen, a professor and the head of the department of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Small, nonselective private colleges and community colleges could suffer the worst outcomes and even be forced to close if the numbers don’t work out.
An enrollment decline is likely, Kelchen said, “but not as much as the number of FAFSA filings is down.”
There are also signs that the technical problems that slowed the process this year will continue into the next admissions cycle.
“The process is now finally working smoothly,” Kelchen said, “but many may still see it as a nightmare.”
