Fall 2009 enrollment
drama plays out
by Justin Draeger
fter a year of worrying, have signifi cant fi nancial implications. culations are the exception to the rule, accord-
A
estimating, discounting and Noel-Levitz CEO Kevin Crockett recalls, ing to Kathy Dawley, president of Maguire
price adjusting, the dust has “Using sophisticated econometric models, we Associates. Only two percent of the schools
settled on the Fall 2009 en- predicted enrollment to be down 10 percent said their yield rates—the percentage of ac-
rollment numbers. A catas- this year. Th at didn’t happen.” cepted students that actually end up attend-
trophe that many feared did not materialize. Ithaca College made headlines when ing—increased by more than 15 percent.
“Th e American public demonstrated it over-enrolled by 20 percent. Th e school Most schools surveyed by her fi rm reported
tremendous rationality in how they re- is paying dozens of students as much as enrollment patterns consistent with previous
acted to this situation,” explains Barmak $10,000 to defer their enrollment for a years.
Nassirian, associate executive director of year, according to one report. By fall, nearly all community colleges and
the American Association of Collegiate Even elite Johns Hopkins over-admitted. many four-year public universities saw en-
Registrars and Admissions Offi cers. “As “Our previously spot-on predictive model rollment surges, albeit for diff erent reasons.
horrifi c as this recession has been, they told us 1,295 freshman students would accept Contrary to the logical expectation in a down
know it will end at some point, and they admission for fall 2009, and 1,350 actually en- economy, not all private schools suff ered: less
are not making rash decisions.” rolled,” lamented William Conle, dean of en- than a quarter of them saw decreased enroll-
So how did college enrollments shake rollment and academic services. Housing man- ment. According to fi gures reported by the
out? Let’s see. agers scrambled to acquire and convert a bed the National Association of College Admis-
and breakfast
Who showed up? inn to house
Most enrollment offi cers equate college an extra 50 stu-
applications to window shopping. Appli- dents.
cations indicate interest, but they off er no But
commitment. Nonetheless, applications those
are the fi rst indicator schools use to esti- mis-
mate enrollment. Over the summer, con- cal-
sulting fi rm Maguire Associates surveyed
nearly 400 enrollment and admissions lead-
ers at four-year institutions. Most of those
schools saw their enrollment inquiries hold
steady or increase from 2008 to 2009.
Steady applications through much
of the year indicated normalcy. How-
ever, that indicator did little to alleviate
concerns, according to Nassirian. Many
schools, unsure about their ability to
turn applications into enrollments, had
to estimate and even re-estimate how
many students to accept. A sizeable ac-
ceptance mistake in either direction can
JusJusttin Dri aeger is vice
president of public policypres ,
advocacyadvo , and research at
the National Association of the N
Student Financial Aid
Administrators.
4 T
oday’s
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ampus subscribe at no charge at
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