Matriculation Matters | Schools respond to enrollment pressures
For colleges and universities, the last few years have been a time of contradictory pressures. On one hand, it's clearer than ever that higher education can be a good investment - the unemployment rate in June was 4.4 percent for people with bachelor's degrees, compared with 9.5 percent for those who've only graduated high school.
On the other hand, college is a big investment for many families, and many are seriously questioning whether they can afford it.
Colleges in Central Massachusetts feel the pressures in different ways, depending on whether they are public or private, and what kinds of education they specialize in. And their responses range from opening new facilities to developing new marketing campaigns.
Two-year v. Four-year
The biggest influx of students during the recession has been at the area’s community colleges. Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester saw its enrollment rise from 5,970 students in the fall of 2005 to 8,922 five years later, and it’s on pace to be even higher this year, according to spokesman Josh Martin. In the last few years, the college has added new classroom space in Worcester and opened a satellite location in Southbridge.
This fall, it’s launching a new campus at Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlborough.
Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner has also seen rising enrollments, particularly at its Devens campus, according to Robin Duncan, vice president of marketing and communications. Without doing the kind of major campus expansions as QCC, Mount Wachusett has increased its capacity by boosting its online-only offerings and adding blended courses that free up space by moving some classroom activity to the web.
Duncan said growth at Mount Wachusett has come from both traditional students seeking a lower-cost option than a four-year school and from mid-career workers looking to retrain. She said many students these days already have one degree but are looking for further education.
“We’re becoming the graduate institution of choice around here,” she said.
For the area’s four-year schools, the enrollment picture has been more mixed. For one thing, some schools simply aren’t trying to grow.
Fitchburg State University has reached what it considers maximum enrollment at about 3,600 undergraduates after a few years of growth, according to spokesman Matthew Bruun. Getting bigger would overfill enrollment halls and compromise class sizes, he said.
At the College of the Holy Cross, Director of Admissions Ann McDermott said the size of the incoming freshman class is a bit higher than usual this year, at 757. But she said that’s more because a larger-than-average percentage of admitted students will be attending. McDermott said the college has decided its current size is appropriate for its facilities and offers students the chance to meet new people without getting lost in a huge crowd.
Paul Brower, director of admissions at Nichols College in Dudley, said enrollment there is unusually high for this fall after “a bit of a rough year” in 2010. So far, 455 freshman and transfer students are signed up, compared with a typical 400, and the SAT scores of the incoming students are unusually high, Brower said.
“We are having an absolutely amazing year,” he said.
Brower said part of Nichols’ appeal is probably the career-focused education it offers. That’s also a selling point at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which received a record number of applications this year, with much of the growth in potentially lucrative fields of study like biomedical engineering and robotics.
Meanwhile, Anna Maria College in Paxton has been having a more difficult year. In the middle of the summer its admissions were tracking lower than expected, and the college decided to make some cuts to protect the budget. But spokeswoman Paula Green said the numbers have recovered somewhat now, and total enrollment is likely to be similar to last year’s. The college is hoping to restore the budget cuts, she said.
Green said Anna Maria enrollment has also grown significantly in recent years, from just over 1,000 in 2007 to between 1,500 and 1,600 this year.
Focus On Value
Many of the area’s private schools say they’ve increased the financial aid they provide to help struggling families over the past few years.
Evan Lipp, vice president for enrollment management at Assumption College in Worcester, said the school has upped the financial help it provides its students, but, like most colleges, it isn’t able to meet 100 percent of demonstrated need. Lipp said that can lead to some tough conversations, but he sees families being more practical in thinking about the dangers of taking out excessive education loans than they were four years ago.
“In the end it’s better, because they’re making a better decision and they’re just being more prudent in their decision making,” he said.
Many schools are also adding new marketing efforts. Holy Cross rolled out an integrated print and online campaign last fall, and McDermott said a greater focus on the Internet seems to have helped draw in more prospective students.
“We find that for us, online chats are something our students really love doing,” she said.
In some cases, schools’ new marketing efforts are focused largely on expanding their geographic reach. With the number of college-age New Englanders projected to decrease in coming years, recruiting beyond the area is becoming increasingly important.
Lipp said Assumption has hired new regional admissions representatives who work out of their homes in New York and Florida to help with the college’s efforts. The new hires reach out to students from those areas and build relationships with local guidance counselors and with Assumption alumni.
Brower said Nichols has expanded its recruiting efforts into the mid-Atlantic region on an exploratory basis and saw results this year with a few new students from that area. This year, he said, the school hired a full-time staff member who does outreach in the mid-Atlantic region and elsewhere outside New England.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments