Shifting Demographics
One of the significant trends in higher education over the past three decades has been the recruitment of students outside their traditional local market. This strategy will become increasingly important to schools located in the Northeast and Midwest due to their high density of colleges and decreasing number of high school graduates and the increasing number of high school graduates in the South and West, as many of these students will struggle to enroll in nearby institutions. The racial, ethnic, and financial makeup of the student coming down the pipeline is changing, with the largest group being Hispanic, low income, and first generation college students. More than 4 in 10 private colleges and almost 3 in 10 public colleges missed their enrollment and tuition revenue goals in 2016. (Selingo “Future”)
According to research by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), “the South and to a certain extent the West will account for nearly all of the growth in the high-school population over the next decade-plus” (Selingo “Future,” 12). By 2025, high-school graduates in the South will account for nearly one-half of potential college-goers; and high-school graduates in the West will account for another 30% (Selingo “Future” 13). Meanwhile, “projections for the Northeast and Midwest . . . show a continued and steady decline” (Selingo “Future,” 12). This is a major concern for Providence College, given the tendency for students from the Northeast to travel out of state and for students from larger, western states to stay close to home (Geographers explain this tendency as a result of “spatial perspective”).
For the next six years, the number of high school graduates will average around 3.4 million before rising to a new high in 2026. After that, the numbers are expected to drop considerably: Between 2026 and 2031, “demographers predict a 9 percent falloff” (Selingo “Future,” 12). While “predicting the number of students flowing into colleges” and universities is not an exact science, a decrease in current high school graduation and/or college-going rates, combined with a decrease in the high school population, will require college leaders to “adapt quickly” (Selingo “Future,” 12-13).
Three major demographic trends are expected to “converge simultaneously.” First is the uneven growth in the college-going population, as mentioned above, with growth being “confined to a swath of states across the South and Southeast and in the Mountain West” (Selingo “Future,” 13). Texas, for example, is expected to become a “hotbed of recruiting,” but “Texas graduates are less willing to cross borders for college. One reason might be that the growth in the Longhorn State has been driven by Hispanic high-school graduates who tend to stay close to home or not go to college at all” (Selingo “Future,” 14).
The second major demographic trend is expected growth in the non-white population. Whereas white students accounted for 70% of the college-going population at the turn of the millennium, they will account for approximately 53% by 2030. To put this decline in perspective, it will be enough to “fill the five largest institutions in the United States” (Selingo “Future,” 14). Supplanting white students will be Hispanic students—many from southern states such as Texas and Florida—whose numbers are expected to grow by 50%.
Even in Midwest and Northeast states, where overall growth will be slow, Hispanic students will be mainly responsible for the increase. Accompanying the decrease in the number of white high-school students will be a “precipitous falloff” in the number of graduates from private, religious high schools. These schools “have long provided a steady pipeline of students to many elite and small colleges in the East and Midwest. These institutions will need to diversify their portfolio of high schools in order to maintain their enrollment in the future” (Selingo “Future,” 15).
The third major demographic trend is the growing economic divide among students entering colleges and universities in the next decade. Poverty levels among families with school-age children are on the rise; in twenty-one states the average income among families with children in K-12 school is less than $40,000. Moreover, the median family income has essentially been flat since the turn of the century, with “the typical American family [making] slightly less than a typical family did 15 years ago” (Selingo “Future,” 15). With the growing economic divide and the increasing cost of higher education, only those students from affluent families will be able to afford more selective, elite colleges.
Even now, “less than one-half of 1 percent of children from the bottom fifth of U.S. families by income attend an elite college” (16). Moreover, students from low-income families are much less likely to enroll in college (54%, compared to 69% from high-income families) or graduate from college (24%, compared to 45% from high-income families) within a six-year period. The growing financial need of this population, combined with the racial and ethnic composition of future college-goers, will pose major challenges to admission officers—especially in light of the finding (by WICHE) that the biggest determining factor in whether students stay home or go away to college is family income: “The higher the family income the more likely a student will cross state borders for college” (Selingo “Future,” 17). With so many low-income students residing in faraway regions (i.e., the South and Midwest), Providence College will be hard-pressed to compete in the “marketplace.” Also, being a tuition-driven institution, flat family income will be challenging for Providence College.
The Migration Mindset
What can PC do to compete in this increasingly competitive and volatile landscape? Thankfully, changes in communication technology have effected a shift in the mindset of many college-goers: “Places that once felt far away now feel as if they are one town over” (Selingo “Future,” 19), and students’ ability to remain in touch with their families from great distances has made them more open to enrolling at a distance. Colleges can help “close the distance” for prospective students by offering virtual tours or live chats with faculty and staff; they can also take advantage of the “peer effect”—putting prospective students in touch with current students (especially those from prospective students’ place of origin) who can answer their questions in real time and/or take them on virtual tours of key campus locations with the help of mobile devices. This strategy can help to “normalize” the idea of going away to college. Some colleges and universities are offering “fly-ins” to groups of counselors from regions where their institutions may be unfamiliar, while others are giving counselors the opportunity to “join advisory panels to provide advice on admissions strategies” (Selingo “Future,” 22). These strategies can help to transform faraway campuses into places that are more familiar to students, but this is a multiyear process.
Students are more likely to leave their home states for college if instate colleges charge high tuitions rates compared to the national average. They are more likely to stay if their state has a high quality public university and their public institutions of higher education have high rates of admission. States that have a vibrant high-education section with a large number of institutions and a number with a high rates of admission are more likely to attract students from states with few choices of private colleges.
Certainly, Providence College can cast a wider recruiting net to new markets that are rich in recruitment prospects. However, high-school counselors warn these recruiting efforts must be “accompanied by efforts that help students adjust to their new home after they enroll” (Selingo “Future,” 25). In other words, before recruiting students, colleges need to make sure that they have the staffing and infrastructure to make their institutions welcoming, supportive, and “familiar” to those who travel from long distances. It is also important to remember that “looking for students in faraway states is not a quick fix for budget shortfalls or lack of diversification in the student body. Any strategy that depends on students migrating to your campus must be part of a larger institutional approach that includes increased financial assistance for the new students and improved academic programs that they can’t necessarily find near their home” (Selingo “Future,” 28).
The Future of College Admissions
Selingo (“Future” 2017) outlines four strategies and trends likely to be at the center of enrollment management over the next decade:
- “Given the declining effectiveness of tuition discounting to shape an incoming class, big data and predictive analytics will play a bigger role in defining the initial applicant pool, as well as forecasting yield and the overall success of students” (Selingo “Future,” 34).
- Prior to the 1980s, college tuition was largely discounted based on the financial needs of the students. But starting in the 1990s college started granting merit scholarships to attract better students away from higher-ranked competitors. “There is increasing evidence, however, that the days of tuition discounting are coming to an end. Net-tuition revenue is flat or declining at three-fourths of public colleges and three-fifths of private colleges according to Moody’s Investors Services” (Selingo “Future,” 34).
- “To increase the efficiency of their admissions funnel, colleges need to make use of data in marketing and throughout the admissions process – even in evaluating applicants (Selingo “Future,” 35).” For example, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology evaluates students on the “growth mindset” versus “fixed mindset” and Goucher College applicants can submit two-minute videos and two pieces of work from high school.
- The application process will change: “Instead of a one-time deadline on a calendar, the application will become a portfolio for collecting information over time about students” (Selingo “Future,” 36).
- Colleges will look to other populations for students: “As the pool of high-school graduates shrinks, transfer students and international applicants will grow in importance at a wider array of institutions” (Selingo “Future,” 36).
- Before earning their bachelor’s degree, one-third of students transfer at least once, and about half of those students changed colleges more than once.
- Especially by starting at a two-year college, students and their parents are seeing transferring as a pathway to earning their undergraduate degrees. To cultivate these segments of students, four-year colleges need to develop their relationships with these two-year colleges.
- There is now increasing uncertainty that the number of international students attending U.S. colleges will continue at its currents levels, let alone increase, with the election of Donald Trump.
- “Policy changes at the state and federal levels could have unintended consequences for admissions, such as efforts to simplify federal student aid” (Selingo “Future,” 38).
- Since families can now submit their Free Application for Federal Student Aid in October of their child’s senior year of high school (three month earlier than in the past) and use tax data from the previous calendar year (rather than trying to estimate their next years earnings), students and parents will have more information about the real cost of attending a specific college much earlier in the admissions process. “What that will mean for admissions probably won’t become clear for another year or two. Some officials expect students to apply to fewer colleges once they know their potential costs. Others expect more colleges to package their financial-aid offers earlier in the year to get a jump-start on the completion” (Selingo “Future,” 38).
Selingo also points to colleges’ increasing use of data to reach prospective students. With “more than one-third [of students] apply[ing] to at least seven schools—many seniors weigh multiple offers and competing financial-aid packages”—it is becoming increasingly more difficult to get students to commit to a particular college; yield rates of colleges have fallen at all but “the most elite institutions.” In addition, colleges have over relied on tuition dollars as a main source of revenue. They are now turning to Big Data to more effectively identify prospects as early as the sophomore year of high school by purchasing student names from testing companies, such as the ACT and College Board, in an attempt to increase the yield of top notch students. The admissions process has now become a yearlong endeavor. Selingo quotes Nicole Hurd, the found and chief executive officer of the College Advising Corps, “’Admissions marketing is focused on college as a consumer good rather than an investment. It’s all about the amenities for students. I’ve never seen graduation rates promoted in a marketing campaign’” (Selingo “Endless Pursuit”).
College Choice
Bergerson in “College Choice Processes for Students of Color” reviews the literature on the college choice process. Admission Offices need to be aware when “increasing access to a range of postsecondary education opportunities for increasingly diverse college-going populations” that on the whole, student of color have a different college-choice experience than their white counterparts. (Bergerson “College Choice,” 64). Bergerson states, “despite increases in the racial and ethnic diversity of the college-going population, proportionate increases in the participation of students of color in higher education have not materialized” (“College Choice,” 63).
Predisposition
Researchers have found that while black and Hispanic students and their families have “higher educational attainment aspirations than whites in every socioeconomic quartile but the highest” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 65), that for students and their families “the perceived benefits [of attending college] do not outweigh the costs” (65). The research indicates that there is “a strong relationship between high school preparation and aspirations” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 66) and that “African American students lack information about postsecondary education, which weakens their aspirations and provides less incentive to do well academically” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 66). Hanson’s study (1994) refers to this as “talent loss” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 66) and attributes this to secondary schools with fewer resources.
Bergerson concludes her section on predisposition:
“It is evident that college predisposition for students of color is different from that of white students. Students of color face significant barriers to forming college predisposition as a result of inequitable educational settings and social and cultural factors that mediate and dilute their initial high educational aspirations. Their access to information is further constrained for a number of reasons, including their families’ understanding of college-going processes, how they are tracked in high school, and how they use peer and family networks as information sources. In terms of cultural wealth, family and community play significant roles in aiding students as they engage in behaviors that lead to the fulfillment of their aspirations, despite societal barriers. This role increases as students move into the search and choice phases of the college choice process. (75)”
Search and Choice
According to Bergerson, Hossler and Gallagher conclude: “students of color access information in different ways and in quantitatively different amounts, which affects their enrollment decisions” (“College Choice,”75). The research on search and choice “posits that students of color face barriers to higher education enrollment because of the lower education status of their parents and the fact that they come disproportionately from lower-income households” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 77).
Bergerson continues, Paulsen and St. John (2002) conclude that students of color “are extremely sensitive to cost as they decide which college to attend. Second, they are relatively unaware of the financial aid that is available, so even though they tend to choose institutions where the costs are lower, they often take on a burden they cannot bear. Finally, if the trend toward larger loans and smaller grants has a negative impact on the persistence decisions of these students, it may also affect their initial enrollment choices” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 78). Just as Selingo reports, Bergerson’s review of the research continues, “Grodsky (2002) found that Latina and Latino students are more apt to select institutions that are close to home, which Stewart and Post (1990) found was also true for blacks, Asians, and Native Americans in their study” (Bergerson “College Choice,” 79).
Access to Information
According to Bergerson access to information, or lack thereof, plays a key role in students of color decision making process: “Cost and availability of financial aid weigh heavily in the search and choice process of students of color (Hurtado, Inkelas, Briggs, and Rhee, 1997). Despite their importance to the postsecondary decision-making process, some authors (Ikenberry and Hartle, 1998; Paulsen and St. John, 2002) reported that students of color and their families are less informed than white middle- class students about postsecondary opportunities generally and about costs and financial aid specifically. Lack of access to information is a common thread that runs through several studies that explored the barriers to college enrollment for students of color” (“College Choice,” 80).
Bergerson continues, “Information is a significant factor in the search and choice process for any student, but evidence suggests that students of color do not access information about college opportunities and financial aid in the same that white students do. For example, African American students are more likely to rely on high school personnel for information, particularly when their parents have not been to college (Plank and Jordan). This situation is problematic because high school personnel frequently do not contribute positively to college-going processes of students of color (Freeman, 1997; Immerwahr, 2003).” Other studies have found similar results for Asian Pacific Americans and Latinas (Bergerson “College Choice,” 80).
Bergerson concludes:
“The story presented in this chapter is one of unrealized aspirations. Students of color and their families highly value education, and in their early years aspirations are high. Yet over time, the combination of schools with limited resources, lack of support from school personnel, inadequate access to information about postsecondary opportunity generally and financial aid resources in particular, social forces that communicate low returns on educational investments, and tracking into nonacademic high school courses discourages these students from fulfilling their initial expectations. The college choice literature related to the experiences of students of color illustrates continued residential and educational segregation that leads one to believe that not much progress has been made since schools were desegregated nearly two generations ago. Although individual success stories do exist, the overall picture explains all too clearly the numbers presented earlier, illustrating the continued stratification of higher education. (“College Choice,” 82)”
Options Other Colleges Have Utilized
There are many options available to reach students of color in the recruitment process. This section outlines a few of them.
College Preparation Programs
In “College Preparation Programs,” Amy Bergerson discusses a variety of programs, including private programs and the federal programs Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services. She summarizes Corwin, Colyar, and Tierney’s (2005) framework for effective programs:
- An emphasis on the culture of the student
- Family engagement
- Incorporation of peer groups
- Early, structured intervention—no later than ninth grade—with consistent structure
- Counselors who exhibit knowledge and are available to students
- Access to college preparation curricula
- Little to no emphasis on cocurricular activities
- Mentoring
- Results that can be achieved at a reasonable cost. (88)
Bergerson discusses the various aspects of successful college preparation programs:
“Essential components of college preparation programs, according to Corwin, Colyar, and Tierney (2005), contribute to the development of an intellectual scaffolding and a cultural scaffolding (p. 4). The intellectual scaffolding comprises foundations such as academic preparation, access to information necessary for planning and strategies for using that information, educational aspirations and the development of the self-efficacy needed to attain educational goals, socialization and acculturation strategies, and a working knowledge of financial aid and financial planning. The cultural scaffolding incorporates a cultural wealth approach, relying on the strengths and networks students bring with them, and framing skill attainment in a way that ‘does not impinge on a student’s cultural background’ (p. 6). (92)”
Different Marketing Strategies
Instead of focusing a lot of attention in “the final weeks before the traditional May 1 decision day,” Selingo suggests using “Big Data to better pinpoint prospects as early as sophomore year of high school.” Colleges have traditionally bought names of students from the College Board and ACT, based in part on student scores and their answers to questions when they registered to take the tests. While some schools are buying more names in order to increase the size of the admission funnel, “the most sophisticated marketers among colleges are moving in the opposite direction and scaling back on their name purchases” (Selingo “Endless Pursuit”) and thus engage in target marketing. In addition, “a few schools also buy names to test for new pockets of students or assess marketing materials, by tracking whether students inquire about admission, visit campus, or apply based on the mailings they received” (Selingo “Endless Pursuit”).
Agreements with Community Colleges
Maes, et al. use the example of Kansas State University and their agreements with the community colleges in Kansas “to help place-bound adult students earn a bachelor’s degree while continuing to live, work, and serve in their home communities. . . . In the United States, 40 million American adults currently have some college credit but no certificate or degree (Smith), and among young adults aged 25-34, 7 million have some college education but no degree (US Department of Education)” (164). The Kansas State partnership consists of:
- a formal, signed agreement with the community college;
- a degree map listing the courses that need to be completed at both institutions in order to complete the bachelor’s degree; and
- publicity for both the community college and K-state. (166)
The closest community colleges to Providence College are the Community College of Rhode Island, Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts, and Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts. Depending on the age, aspirations, and work status of the students, agreements could possibly be made for students to transfer either to the undergraduate college or to the School of Continuing Education.
References
Bergerson, Amy Aldous. “College Choice Processes for Students of Color.” ASHE Higher Education
Report, vol. 35. no. 4, Nov. 2009, pp.63-83. Online.
—. “College Preparation Programs.” ASHE Higher Education Report, vol. 35. no. 4, Nov. 2009, pp. 85-97. Online.
Maes, Sue, et al. “Kansas State University: 2+2 Partnerships with Community Colleges.” Continuing Higher Education Review, vol. 75, 01 Jan. 2011, pp. 164-172. Online.
Selingo, Jeffrey J. “Colleges’ Endless Pursuit of Students.” The Atlantic. 10 April 2017. Online.
—. “The Future of Enrollment: Where Colleges Will Find Their Next Students.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 2017.