Key Issues in New Student Enrollment


Book Description

As the first decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close and the baby boomlet ends, America's 4,000-odd colleges and universities will once again be foced to deal with a declinging number of secondary-school graduates. Some institutions will become smaller, some will close, new student markets will develop, and students who might have selected college X in the past will select college Y instead. This volume brings into focus many of the key issues American institutions of higher education will face in the next decade as they encounter demographic changes much like those they confronted when the baby boom ended in the 1980s. Will private industries continue to try and reap financial benefits from the desire of both families and institutions for status? Is the notion of meeting the full demonstrated financial need of most admitted students gone forever? Is need-blind admission at independent colleges a thing of the past? Will the marketplace value of the SAT and ACT continue to slip? Will the goal of creating a diverse student body run into further legal challenges and roadblocks? These and other contemporary issues in new student enrollment are presented by a group of leading professionals who thoughtfully explore topics of special and passionate interest to them -- and to everyone, teachers and administrators alike, in America's colleges and universities. This is the 118th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Student Services, always an indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals.







Handbook of Strategic Enrollment Management


Book Description

Improve student enrollment outcomes and meet institutional goals through the effective management of student enrollments. Published with the American Association for Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), the Handbook of Strategic Enrollment Management is the comprehensive text on the policies, strategies, practices that shape postsecondary enrollments. This volume combines relevant theories and research, with applied chapters on the management of offices such as admissions, financial aid, and the registrar to provide a comprehensive guide to the complex world of Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM). SEM focuses on achieving enrollment goals, and sustaining institutional revenue and serving the needs of students. It provides insights into the ways SEM is practiced across four-year institutions, community colleges, and professional schools. More than just an enhanced approach to admissions and financial aid, SEM examines the student's entire educational cycle. From entry through graduation, this volume helps SEM professionals and graduate students interested in enrollment management to anticipate change and balancing the goals of revenue, access, diversity, and prestige. The Handbook of Strategic Enrollment Management: Provides an overview of the thinking of leading practitioners that comprise SEM organizations, including marketing, recruitment, and admissions; tuition pricing; financial aid; the registrar's role, academic advising; and, retention Includes up-to-date research on current issues in SEM including college choice, financial aid, student persistence, and the effective use of technology Guides readers creating strategic enrollment organizations that fit the unique history, culture, and policy context of your campus Strategic enrollment management has become one of the most important administrative areas in postsecondary education, and it is being adopted in countries around the globe. The Handbook of Strategic Enrollment Management is for anyone in enrollment management, admissions, financial aid, registration and records, orientation, marketing, and institutional research who wish to enhance the health and vitality of his or her institution. It is also an excellent text for graduate programs in higher education and student affairs.




Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education


Book Description

"The economics of American higher education are driven by one key factor--the availability of students willing to pay tuition--and many related factors that determine what schools they attend. By digging into the data, economist Nathan Grawe has created probability models for predicting college attendance. What he sees are alarming events on the horizon that every college and university needs to understand. Overall, he spots demographic patterns that are tilting the US population toward the Hispanic southwest. Moreover, since 2007, fertility rates have fallen by 12 percent. Higher education analysts recognize the destabilizing potential of these trends. However, existing work fails to adjust headcounts for college attendance probabilities and makes no systematic attempt to distinguish demand by institution type. This book analyzes demand forecasts by institution type and rank, disaggregating by demographic groups. Its findings often contradict the dominant narrative: while many schools face painful contractions, demand for elite schools is expected to grow by 15+ percent. Geographic and racial profiles will shift only slightly--and attendance by Asians, not Hispanics, will grow most. Grawe also use the model to consider possible changes in institutional recruitment strategies and government policies. These "what if" analyses show that even aggressive innovation is unlikely to overcome trends toward larger gaps across racial, family income, and parent education groups. Aimed at administrators and trustees with responsibility for decisions ranging from admissions to student support to tenure practices to facilities construction, this book offers data to inform decision-making--decisions that will determine institutional success in meeting demographic challenges"--




School’s Choice


Book Description

Access issues are pivotal to almost all charter school tensions and debates. How well are these schools performing? Are they segregating and stratifying? Are they public and democratic? Are they fairly funded? Can apparent successes be scaled up? Answers to all these core questions hinge on how access to charter schools is shaped. This book describes the incentives and pressures on charter schools to restrict access and examines how charters navigate those pressures, explaining access-restricting practices in relation to the ecosystem within which charter schools are created. It also explains how charters have sometimes responded by resisting the pressures and sometimes by surrendering to them. The text presents analyses of 13 different types of practices around access, each of which shapes the school’s enrollment. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for how states and authorizers can address access-related inequities that arise in the charter sector. School’s Choice provides timely information on critical academic and policy issues that will come into play as charter school policy continues to evolve. Book Features: Examines how charter schools control who gains and retains access.Explores policies and practices that undermine equitable admission and encourage opportunity hoarding.Offers a set of policy recommendations at the state and federal level to address access-related issues.




The Agile College


Book Description

Following Grawe's seminal first book, this volume answers the question: How can a college or university prepare for forecasted demographic disruptions? Demographic changes promise to reshape the market for higher education in the next 15 years. Colleges are already grappling with the consequences of declining family size due to low birth rates brought on by the Great Recession, as well as the continuing shift toward minority student populations. Each institution faces a distinct market context with unique organizational strengths; no one-size-fits-all answer could suffice. In this essential follow-up to Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Nathan D. Grawe explores how proactive institutions are preparing for the resulting challenges that lie ahead. While it isn't possible to reverse the demographic tide, most institutions, he argues persuasively, can mitigate the effects. Drawing on interviews with higher education leaders, Grawe explores successful avenues of response, including • recruitment initiatives • retention programs • revisions to the academic and cocurricular program • institutional growth plans • retrenchment efforts • collaborative action Throughout, Grawe presents readers with examples taken from a range of institutions—small and large, public and private, two-year and four-year, selective and open-access. While an effective response to demographic change must reflect the individual campus context, the cases Grawe analyzes will prompt conversations about the best paths forward. The Agile College also extends projections for higher education demand. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study, the book updates prior work by incorporating new information on college-going after the Great Recession and pushes forecasts into the mid-2030s. What's more, the analysis expands to examine additional aspects of the higher education market, such as dual enrollment, transfer students, and the role of immigration in college demand.




Student Success in College


Book Description

Student Success in College describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.




Serving the Millennial Generation


Book Description

"Higher education is on the cusp of a new enrollment boom. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that by 2012 total college enrollment will exceed 15.8 million students, an increase of more than 12 percent over the 2003 enrollment level. The bulk of this increase will consist of traditional-age students who are members of the Millennial generation (born after 1981). This generation of students and their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors will require student affairs practitioners to adopt new learning and service strategies, rethink student development theories, and modify educational environments. It is the goal of this volume of New Directions for Student Services to give readers a foundation for understanding this newest generation of students and to offer suggestions on how to educate and serve them more effectively."--Page 4 of cover.




College Choice


Book Description

This report discusses enrollment planning by colleges and universities as it concerns the understanding of why students choose to attend one particular college over another. First, the past responses of colleges to enrollment-threatening changes are presented. Next, an explanation is given of why knowledge of student college choice behavior is important for enrollment planning, student marketing, and recruitment. Then, the conceptual foundations for the study of college choice behavior (psychology, sociology, economics) are discussed, followed by an explanation of why it is important to understand what determines enrollment fluctuations, such as an increasing job market or economic recession. Micro-level studies of college choice behavior, which are used to estimate the effects of institutional and student characteristics on the probability that a particular individual will choose a particular college, are examined. Finally, information related to the following questions is presented and discussed: (1) "what factors are important to students of nontraditional age in making college decisions?" (2) "what are the phases of the college choice process?" (3) "what factors are important in creating a desire to attend college?" (4) "why is the college search and application phase so important?" and (5) "how can an institution more effectively manage enrollment in the selection and attendance phase?" Contains an index and 227 references. (GLR).




The Chosen


Book Description

Drawing on decades of research, Karabel shines a light on the ever-changing definition of "merit" in college admissions, showing how it shaped--and was shaped by--the country at large.