It is getting closer to the fall semester and your application numbers are below last year’s count.

Numerous campus administrators and staff members are concerned and offer plenty of potential ideas to reach more students.

Extending admission office hours beyond 5 p.m., adding in some weekend hours, increasing marketing, and scheduling more in-person and virtual open houses are some of the usual approaches. And crucial conversations about the numerous steps to start college or reenroll—and the importance of a “one-stop” approach to student services—are also taking place.

It’s tempting to jump right into action, implementing several strategies all at once. But by doing a bit of internal research first, you’re more likely to hit upon a solution that proves successful for your unique institution and student body.

Continue reading Addressing Community College Enrollment Concerns →

Editor’s note: A version of this column was first published on the Minerva Project blog.

In the United States, summer is time for a much-deserved school break, family vacations, and for many students — college campus tours.

In fact, some students visit so many colleges over the summer it’s dizzying. When I was an admission counselor at a university that saw more than 50,000 visitors per year, I often asked groups of students and families at our information sessions how many schools they had already visited. Usually it was a handful or two at most. But one time a girl raised her hand and had a jaw-dropping list of 35.

This is not a knock on the college tour. It can be a valuable tool in helping students decide which school is a good fit for them. But herein lies the challenge: The more schools you visit, the more they tend to sound — and look — the same. This makes it even more important to ask the right questions when you visit.

Students who go through the enrollment pipeline process, financial aid, and other related procedures will sometimes be faced with “holds,” specifically, administrative process holds.

Administrators typically place holds on a student’s online account to urge them to act on a variety of specific tasks (much of which is guided by a federal or an institutional policy). For example, students may need to complete their financial aid documents to pay for their courses on time, pay an outstanding balance, register for classes, or finalize their admission process.

When I started my career in 2003, I would have been hard-pressed to think that bias existed in the enrollment management profession. After all, doesn’t every college talk about how much they want to diversify their student body? Or how they want to be a more inclusive and accepting community? Campuses seek out students from a spectrum of backgrounds—low socioeconomic status, full-pay, LGBTQ, rural, urban, suburban, international, athletes, residents of certain states…the list is quite exhaustive. And it stands to reason that hiring practices within the profession would follow the same philosophy, right?

Unfortunately, since my last position on a college campus, which ended April 2019, I have witnessed a deep and disturbing pattern whereby hiring managers rarely view the marketing, recruiting, enrollment, and retention skills cultivated by individuals in the community college sector as on par with skills cultivated at four-year institutions.

I view this as an incidence of classism in higher education. Ultimately, it hurts qualified candidates and harms institutions that could benefit from the skills, experiences, and unique perspectives that community college professionals bring to the table.

Continue reading Addressing Bias in Hiring: Lessons for Enrollment Management Leaders →