Thirty percent of higher ed students today are the first in their family to attend college, while 24 percent—4.5 million—are both first-generation and low-income. That means a significant portion of students is at risk of dropping out, as National Center for Education Statistics data shows that only 11 percent of low-income, first-generation students graduated within […]
For many, Jan. 1 signifies a day of great college football bowl games, highly caloric leftover holiday food, and time with family and friends ringing in the New Year. However, for those working in financial aid offices at colleges or universities across the country, the start of the new year signals the beginning of financial […]
Committed to being a true partner to colleges and universities by supporting student success, Barnes & Noble College recently partnered with Why Millennials Matter to launch a national study on the state of student career preparation and student perceptions about careers after college. In this web seminar, originally broadcast on October 23, 2014, attendees learned […]
The often-used businesses term "right-sizing" has in recent years become common in higher education. Though sometimes used as a euphemism for "downsizing," it more rightly refers to an effort to optimize enrollment, human resources, programs and facilities—in other words, fixed costs. There are a host of factors that should go into the analysis when an […]
Maybe the last thing you want to do in environmentally conscious Oregon is implement an efficiency-oriented solution that ends up resulting in greater paper use. Administrators at Portland State purchased an enterprise content management solution for admissions, registration and records, financial aid and business services that—among other deficiencies—necessitated the printing of a prospective student's application […]
Steven Shaw spends much of his time analyzing spreadsheets and watching for trends. He also flies across the globe on extended trips that can last weeks. This might sound like a lot of work and resources—but for international student recruitment to be effective, it takes attention, buy-in and leadership at all levels, says Shaw, assistant […]
At a time when the gulf between liberals and conservatives seems to be wider than ever, there is one topic about which they agree: the reasons for the rising cost of a college education. Why do colleges and universities keep raising tuition, asks Timothy Noah in The New Republic? Because they can. And Allysia Finley […]
Historically, Western Michigan University's 12 on-staff recruiters could visit as many as 40 or 50 high schools in a week and collect up to 1,000 paper cards filled with prospective students' contact information. In a year, they could easily collect 10,000 such cards, which were brought back to campus and then entered manually into the […]
Although managing enrollment efforts has never been easy, it was not that long ago when the traditional funnel was somewhat predictable. As an admissions counselor in my early days, I could easily work backward to set goals for my territory, starting with my goal for the number of enrolled students. I then used historical data […]
From managing loans to controlling spending, many college students find themselves dealing with a host of financial responsibilities for the very first time. And it's not uncommon for them to trip up. Campus financial literacy programs can help students steer clear of some of their most common financial mistakes. The challenge for educators is to […]
