If you’re riding in a car barreling toward a cliff, how
much do you care about the air conditioning?
A couple weeks ago, during the first presentation block at
the National Association for College Admission Counselors (NACAC) conference, I
attended a session looking ahead to college admission in 2025. The conversation was led by a researcher at the
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and the deans of
admission at Princeton, Drew University, and Bucknell. I left wondering if we’re headed for the cliff
and reaching for the settings on the AC instead of hitting the brakes.
Peace Bransberger from WICHE presented a fascinating and
quickly changing demographic landscape over the next 10-15 years. Here are the highlights:
·
By 2025, high schools will graduate smaller and
more diverse classes.
·
Fewer students will graduate from private
schools
·
More high school grads will come from families
in lower income brackets
·
College-going populations will be more diverse,
specifically due to growth in Hispanic and Asian communities
·
Prospective students will be more
likely to be the first in their family to attend college
In many ways, more high school grads will be from the underrepresented
populations colleges have been attempting
to recruit for years. That is a
positive trend as we think about access and equity in higher ed.
But if other truths are left unchanged, we’re facing a
problem in the higher education environment in which these students will
exist. The cost of college has risen
dramatically above the rate
of inflation. Student
debt has surpassed credit card debt.
Fewer students graduate on time.
And here’s the kicker: first generation and underrepresented
college students are especially vulnerable to these trends. They are less likely to graduate in five years and more likely to walk away with debt.
Some of these students encounter hostile social environments on campus
making it difficult to thrive. They are
also the least likely to attend college far away from their home and most
likely to under-match based on their qualifications.
34%
of colleges made their enrollment numbers by May 1 of last year. The majority of colleges are unable to fully
cover students’ financial need, and very few have the luxury of ignoring need
when admitting students. So, if you’re a
college:
·
You probably aren’t fully meeting the need of
students who can’t afford your cost
·
You probably need at least a handful of full-pay
students (who are disproportionately white and from educated backgrounds)
·
You need to make your enrollment goals (preferably
by May 1, or shortly thereafter via the waitlist) so that your yearly tuition
revenue can sustain college budgets
But, by 2025, you’re going to be facing a smaller college-going
population that…
·
Requires more need-based aid to attend
·
Has less savvy about the college admission
process and is more likely to be the first in their family to navigate
it
·
May not consider your university simply based on its sticker price
·
May not consider a college far away (most
population growth is projected for the southeast)
If you’re the dean of admission at Princeton, you might not lose
sleep over this. You can recruit and
yield the best and brightest regardless of their ability to pay. You have the means to fund students and
ensure they take on minimal, if any, debt.
But what about the others on the panel – Bucknell and Drew? What about some of their peer
institutions? Tuition-dependent colleges
that struggle to recruit and yield diverse populations in 2017 are headed for a
cliff by 2025, no?
Credit Drew University for cutting tuition costs. That’s a start. But what about their peers? What happens to any number of wonderful institutions who admittedly struggle to
yield their class, who rely on having at least a handful of full-pay students,
and who would love to be more diverse, but whose price tag is unlikely to go
down, all while fewer future applicants will have the ability to pay it. What if you're one of those really excellent colleges located in small-town Iowa, Pennsylvania, or Ohio that hasn't historically been an easy sell for diverse
students from distant regions? Should we
expect that students who typically stay closer to home – and again, we’re
facing significant population declines in the Northeast and Midwest
– will suddenly change their behavior?
Back to the initial analogy, then. If selective college admission is riding in the
car, it sure seems like we’re headed towards the figurative demographic
cliff. Princeton is riding in the
backseat surrounded by airbags full of money and a parachute made of prestige. They’re going to survive impact and walk away
unscathed. Drew University (and a few
others) are trying to tap the breaks by lowering or freezing costs.
But it sure feels like many small liberal arts colleges are
riding shotgun and fiddling with the temperature on the AC instead of yanking
on the emergency brake. In the face of
these demographic shifts, they promote the mastery transcript – an
initiative spearheaded by elite, private schools (whose population is set to
decline by 2025, according to WICHE).
They envision being more interested in ‘non-cognitive indicators’ in application review. They are thinking about increased security for
their application databases. They talk
of deemphasizing test scores. In aggregate, these all are positive changes to a
selective, holistic review. A nice,
comfortable temperature improvement in our metaphorical car. But to whose files will these colleges apply their admirable new reading strategies? How will they financially support the students they admit using these tactics? Do these changes amount to any
more than tweaking the temperature levels while we barrel off the cliff
anyway?
An interesting figure was presented at the end of the
session: there are approximately the same number of school-aged children in
China currently as there are people of all ages in the entire American
population. Perhaps the answer at some
colleges will be to admit more international students, who typically are expected
to pay full tuition and for whom need-based aid is almost non-existent.
In other words, just when the domestic population offers
more of the diverse, first-generation students that have been underrepresented
on so many elite college campuses for years, selective schools might instead look
to wealthy Chinese students to balance their budgets. Wouldn’t that be a shame?
