By Kevin Mahnken (74Million.org).
Fifty-five percent of college admissions directors said in a recent poll that they were “very concerned” about hitting enrollment targets for 2017–18, up from just 31 percent in 2015. All told, 85 percent voiced at least some doubt about meeting their goals for the year, yet more evidence of a nationwide decline in college attendance that has been measured for several years.
The officials voiced their worries as part of Inside Higher Ed’s annual Survey of College and University Admissions Directors, which solicited responses from more than 450 administrators at public, private, and for-profit schools from July to August. The fight for new applicants was the main focus of the study, though participants also gave provocative answers to questions on free-tuition schemes, the use of social media in admissions, and higher education’s response to the 2016 elections.
Just 34 percent of those polled said their institutions had met the coming year’s enrollment goals by the traditional May 1 deadline; that figure represents an 8-percentage-point dip from two years prior. Highly desirable, doctorate-granting public universities — schools like Clemson, University of Virginia, and Purdue — are the only institutions for which a majority of respondents (59 percent) had admitted full classes by May 1. Only about a quarter of public baccalaureate (22 percent) and community colleges (27 percent) had done so. Read full article
