W hen enrollment crises hit, campus leaders sometimes propose wild ideas, like sending recruiters far and wide to drum up more applicants. But that’s not always wise — or feasible. Sure, the most-selective colleges can pull eager students from 2,000 miles away, but most institutions can’t. For much of academe, recruitment is local.
That’s especially true for regional public universities, many of which find themselves in a tightening bind. Those institutions, typically serving great numbers of low- and middle-income students, are under pressure to keep prices low even as state funding declines. That has forced some leaders to rethink traditional enrollment strategies. In the name of adaptation, they are sharpening recruitment tactics, seeking new ways to serve their markets, and fine-tuning student-success plans.
And unlike many public flagships, they’re not doubling down on recruiting in faraway states. “We’re saying ‘no’ to California,” says Gary D. Swegan, associate vice president for enrollment planning and management at Youngstown State University, in Ohio. “It’s just not going to happen at a school like ours.”
Still, Youngstown State is trying to reach a wider audience within its region. A must, Mr. Swegan says.
After all, the university, primarily a commuter campus, has long depended greatly on its own backyard: For many years, about four-fifths of its students came from just five of Ohio’s 88 counties. That was OK until a recent enrollment downturn shook the campus, where the number of students fell by 17.5 percent over four years, leading to layoffs and pay freezes.
Several factors led to the downturn, officials say. As the economy improved, many students returned to the work force. And the university, once an open-admission institution, raised entrance requirements, factoring out would-be admits.
Under a new president, Youngstown State, in the northeast corner of Ohio, embraced a new direct-marketing plan designed to reach from Cleveland to Buffalo, and down to Columbus and Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, the university has hired three part-time regional recruiters to work the many parts of the state where its name isn’t well known, or known at all. All that will help the university expand its residential population, officials hope.
Mr. Swegan is cautiously optimistic. Last fall the size of the first-year class increased by 13.5 percent over the previous year, with students coming from 54 Ohio counties, up from 37. The average ACT score of incoming freshmen (21.5) has risen a couple of points over several years. All the spaces in a new apartment complex, privately developed in partnership with the university, are full for next fall.
Although the university intends to keep serving its traditional base, a projected population decline in Ohio’s high-school graduates has persuaded Mr. Swegan that a wider recruitment net and a more-aggressive marketing push are necessities. “It used to be, Sit back and wait for whoever walks in the door,” he says. “But we cannot be a five-county institution anymore. There’s just no way.”
‘Not the Norm Now’
Recruitment’s only one piece of any enrollment puzzle. “I’ve seen people finally come to grips with the fact that it’s not just about new freshmen,” says Gerri L. Daniels, director of admissions at Northern Michigan University. “You can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
Although Northern Michigan has long considered transfer students a priority, it has done much more to engage them over the last decade or so, improving transfer-of-credit policies and expanding scholarships. Yet with community-college enrollment declining, Ms. Daniels says, regional publics are wise to seek new strategies, too.
Last fall Northern Michigan saw its total headcount drop by about 400 students (on a campus of 8,200). By then, various strategies to enhance recruitment and retention were underway.
We’re thinking beyond just how we can be appealing to one kind of student.
To expand its outreach, the university has created an Extended Learning and Community Engagement Division, led by a new vice president. The “Northern Promise,” one of the division’s first projects, was designed to give local high-school students a chance to earn 12 to 15 college credits at no cost to them (their schools foot the bill). The same program includes a “second-start” path to the university for high-school graduates who, though they might have low grades and test scores, can demonstrate competency in reading, writing, and math. The venture is also meant to promote partnerships with local businesses that might better train future workers.
And the university plans to expand its online offerings. “We’re thinking beyond just how we can be appealing to one kind of student,” Ms. Daniels says.
No discussion of regional publics is complete without considering the diversity of the students they serve. According to a recent analysis of federal data by EAB (formerly the Education Advisory Board), the percentage of Pell-eligible students at regional publics rose to 43 percent in 2012, up from 33 percent just five years earlier.
That presents a keen challenge for institutions hoping to retain and graduate more students. “It’s much easier to say, We want to just go out and get more high-scholarship students who can all pay and graduate in four years,” says Terricita E. Sass. “Uh, that’s not the norm now.”
Ms. Sass is associate vice president for enrollment management at Southern Connecticut State University, which has seen a surge of not-so-well-prepared applicants, many of whom are minorities from underserved high schools. Instead of writing off all those with subpar transcripts, the institution has been looking more closely for evidence of motivation. Some students, for instance, had managed to bring up their grades during their junior and senior year, which told the university something important.
“They simply have not had the opportunities,” Ms. Sass says, “but they’re smart kids, who, if given the opportunity and support, can be successful.”
Plenty of colleges mine data to find more of the applicants they really want. Yet the right numbers can also reveal how well an institution is meeting the needs of the students it already has.
Recently, an analysis of enrollment data convinced Southern Connecticut that it could better serve those students who needed the most support. Too many had been dropping out after one or two years. “More intervention was needed,” Ms. Sass says.
So the university has expanded its summer bridge program to provide sustained mentoring — courtesy of faculty, staff, and other students — to select freshmen and sophomores. The idea is to promote engagement, a sense of community that lasts. It’s one way the university is trying to better align recruitment and retention strategies. “If we can retain more students, there’s less pressure on recruiting, less of a revolving door,” Ms. Sass says. “We can’t change that demographic shift — these are the cards we are dealt.”
Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.
