Sara Goldrick-Rab's mission is to make higher education the accessible and affordable place that families want and need it to be. In Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream (2016, University of Chicago Press), Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University, describes what […]
This month we begin a trilogy of best value proposition case studies providing an inside look at how several institutions have developed more relevant ways of measuring value-added outcomes, quality of learning experience, and return on tuition investment. Typically, the college selection process for high school students is as routine as the senior prom, where students and parents eyeball traditional college […]
The student debt crisis—despite dire warnings from the media—is not as bad as it is portrayed, researchers Beth Akers and Matthew Chingos say. In their book Game of Loans: The Rhetoric and Reality of Student Debt (Princeton University Press, 2016), the authors say the popular myth of looming crisis has obscured the real problems facing student […]
When campus marketing departments and admissions offices collaborate, valuable strategic alignments can be formed. Well-coordinated teams ensure that institutional branding messages speak to recruitment needs, while the recruiting messages encourage brand awareness and market penetration that resonate with faculty, staff and alumni. A shared reporting structure is one way to foster these alignments. Additionally, a […]
A greater level of accountability around access and outcomes looms on the horizon for higher ed administrators in 2017 and beyond. Experts across the ideological spectrum predict the federal government and the general public to demand more transparency in the data released about how graduates of specific campus programs fare in the job market. This push could […]
There were more than 100,000 applicants to American Bar Association-accredited law schools in the fall of 2004. In the three years prior, the number of applicants rose almost 30 percent. At the time, most law schools could expect yearly increases in tuition and applications. For many universities, the law school was seen as a cash […]
A bipartisan bill intended to improve college access and graduation rates would impose college-loan program penalties on institutions that perform poorly in these areas. The federal government allocates approximately $180 billion annually in federal student aid and tax benefits to help low- and middle-income students, according to a report released by the bill's sponsors, U.S. […]
The University of Kentucky had a problem: Enrollment was up significantly, but the number of residence hall spots remained stagnant. With 5,000 beds available in 22 campus residence halls, the university could accommodate incoming freshman—but a growing number of sophomores desiring on-campus housing were being turned away. Eric Monday, executive vice president of finance and […]
It has been demonstrated amply that financial aid leveraging can, under the right circumstances, increase enrollment and net tuition revenue. For some, however, that isn't the case. Enrollment leaders must therefore assess other aspects of recruitment to determine how effectively they are working to build larger, more committed applicant and admit pools, especially when increases […]
Almost everybody ranks colleges these days—old stalwarts like U.S. News & World Report, influential upstarts like Washington Monthly and click-baiting websites that measure everything from campus sustainability to most attractive students to coolest mascots. William Destler, president of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, even found his university named one of the "geekiest" in […]
