College Enrollment Falls Short at More Colleges

College Enrollment Falls Short at More Colleges

College is a business. Yes, that is a fact and they need to make money in order to stay in business. A major part of achieving their financial goals is to meet their yield, meaning the number of students that will be enrolled for the upcoming academic year.

An article this week in The Chronicle of Higher Education, an industry publication to which I subscribe, says that this 2019-2020 academic year there were even more colleges than last year that didn’t meet their yield, and some of which have never had to be concerned about this previously.

College Enrollment Down at Some Colleges

Bucknell, a university that typically admits 30% of their applicants located in PA, fell short by 2% and Ithaca, who admits about 70% of their applicants in western NY, is under by 175 students. Word has it that other highly selective schools missed their goals as well. This is an ever growing concern for these institutions as they need grows for meeting their goals, financially and otherwise.

Tuition and Other Factors

One of the major reasons appears to be that students and their families have an increasing sensitivity to college tuition and other costs surrounding attending college. This is where they choose price over a perceived college experience (And note how I said “perceived”.)

I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again. College and your life after college is about what you make of it, not the college brand name you attend. You need to think long and hard about how you are going to fund that education and how that will affect you long after that degree is earned.