Tim Copeland's Blog on College & University Marketing and Enrollment Management

Competition and Managing Enrollment Technology Lead List of Concerns for Conference Attendees

Increasing competition and managing technology to support enrollment efforts lead a list of concerns for higher education professionals. This according to presentation attendees at SunGard Higher Education's annual conference - Summit 2008. 

During Planning for Recruiting and Admissions Success sixty attendees participated in an interactive survey to list their concerns, common enrollment objectives, and rank commonly used recruitment performance metrics.

Enrollment Yields Drop for Fall 2008 Class

Declining enrollment yields are causing elite colleges and universities to reach deeper into their freshman wait lists according to today's Wall Street Journal.

With a record number of high school graduates combined with increasing numbers of applications and deposits, even the most experienced enrollment managers are challenged to forecast new student enrollment. "It was certainly a year in which there was more uncertainty than I've experienced in over 30 years in admissions," says Bill Fitzsimmons, Harvard's dean of admissions and financial aid.

Quality and Spending: New Research Into the Business of Enrollment Management

Despite the rapid increases in college enrollment tuitions, the investment is not translating into better results. This is according to a new study entitled, "The Growing Imbalance: Recent Trends in U.S. Postsecondary Education Finance."

Higher education leaders insist that spending increases are necessary to maintain educational quality. However according to Jane Wellman, the report author, "what we see across a broad range of indicators is that states and institutions are spending money in areas that may not be in line with the public priority of preparing more graduates."