Admissions Marketing Insights

Big flap in CA over community college student recruitment plans

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Just read this great article from Inside Higher Ed about the community college flap in California, and it offers lots of food for thought about student enrollment and student recruitment practices.

It's no secret that California, like many states these days, is facing a huge budget crisis, and its network of colleges and universities is bearing its share of the brunt of these shortfalls. In an effort to hold costs in line and to drive a "completion agenda," the Legislature created a task force at the community college level, tasking members with finding ways to improve student outcomes and improve workforce preparedness.  

One task force recommendation, not yet implemented as of this writing but under consideration, is the root of the big to-do, and that is giving enrollment priority to students who are most likely to earn a degree or certificate.  This primarily means graduates of local high schools. City College of San Francisco already has a pilot in place, and 2010 results show that "fully 98 percent of 323 incoming students from local high schools who took advantage of priority registration returned for their second semester--a big retention gain from the previous average of 75%."

The report calls favoring of students with larger numbers of credits a "perverse incentive for students to enroll in classes, even if they do not further their educational objectives, simply to gain a higher place in the enrollment queue."

For four-year schools, there are a couple of important messages here:

First, if your student recruitment efforts are returning too many candidates (nice problem to have), this approach suggests another data point in the ranking of qualified students. Secondly, from a student recruitment and admissions marketing perspective, graduates of these two-year programs that participated in the priority enrollment program may be good candidates for your student recruitment efforts.

What do you think?  Is this type of rationing of access to educational resources appropriate? What would you do differently?  I encourage you to read the full article, and would love to hear your thoughts.