Can More Economic Diversity Save Our Colleges?
Building a college admissions class these days requires creativity… and reframing (Image from Jessica Ruscello, Unsplash)
As final enrollment counts come in next week for colleges and universities across America, let’s take a moment to salute the bedraggled admissions officers who got this year’s first-year class of students to join up. Let’s put it bluntly, if you are an admissions officer, you’ve got a tough job. Here’s what you are hearing from your chancellors/presidents:
1. Help us keep our lights on; figure out the supply and demand problem: Find enough academically-qualified students to choose our school over a boatload of other options and make sure they bring with them enough money to help us keep our lights on; and
2. Help us create an interesting culture on campus; solve the diversity challenge: Make sure the students you bring on campus are different enough from each other to create a rich, vibrant culture on campus.
Maybe after they figure that out they can move onto accomplishing something easier, like turning stone into bread.
The challenge of supply and demand:
· The college-going rate among high school seniors has been declining since 2009 and the US is about to begin a 12-year decline in the number of graduating high school seniors. The number of international students attending US colleges has decreased by 150,000 nationally in the past three years;
· A lot of students (and their parents) are nervous about the increasing cost of college, worrying about taking on student debt and questioning the long-term value of college.
The challenge of diversity:
· This summer the Supreme Court struck down admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill that those universities (and others) used to diversify their student body racially;
· For decades the percentage of males applying to colleges has been declining, resulting in student bodies that are, on average 59% female (see this earlier post). As part of the negotiations on Title IX in the 1970’s there is no prohibition on admitting men with poorer qualifications than women, but the supply of interested men is still significantly lower than women.
A new analysis released by the New York Times yesterday could point the way to a solution for at least some of the problems of some admissions officers. The Times’ “College Access Index” examines what percentage of students at each of the country’s 286 most selective colleges come from economically-disadvantaged families (using student eligibility for the “Pell Grant” as the indicator) and what the trend line for admissions of those students has been over the past five years.
In general, the study finds, colleges with a choice are moving slowly away from admitting lower-income students, perhaps because colleges worry they can’t “afford” them.
The story accompanying the Index argues that admitting more qualified lower-income students ensures that we identify more of our best and brightest — and that it is the “right” thing to do. Of course it it. But it can also partially address both of the admissions officers “big two” challenges. The Pell Grant is getting more generous, so low-income students now bring with them more funding than in the past (Pell Grants pay colleges up to $7400 per student per year now). And because of the persistent racial disparities in income, bringing in more economically-disadvantaged students also increases the racial and ethnic variety of the student body, particularly at selective colleges.
What might it mean for a college or university to pay more attention to finding qualified lower-income students as a part of a larger revitalization strategy?
Among selective colleges, Salem ranks number two in the country in its percentage of low-income student
Let’s look at tiny Salem College, located in Winston-Salem North Carolina. Facing criticism for its treatment of its minority students, and watching enrollment numbers evaporate, Salem has very intentionally increased the percentage of Pell-eligible students it enrolls. The Times analysis finds Salem’s Pell-eligibility numbers are up 16 percentage points over five years, to a whopping 69% this year (by contrast, Wake Forest University, another “selective college” just 4.4 miles away, only enrolls 10% Pell-eligible students; Duke University, 78 miles away, ranks last among “highly selective colleges” at 12%). New president Summer McGee told Inside Higher Ed earlier this year: “Salem is radically inclusive.”
That move is one part of a larger effort by the college that is also helping to keep the lights on. Like any college, Salem has had to develop other ways to make itself distinctive in a highly competitive college environment.
· At a time when all-women’s colleges have mostly disappeared and college-going males are disappearing, Salem is solving the disappearing male problem by focusing only on females.
· At a time when other campuses are getting bigger to accomplish economies of scale, Salem is marketing the power of “small” (partly out of necessity – even with the increases, this year’s entering class only totals 179); class sizes average 11 students.
· And, importantly, at a time when many colleges are trying to be good at a wide variety of disciplines, Salem is very intentionally going all in to “prepare the next generation of health care leaders,” creating three highly-focused health care degree tracks. About 80% of students now major in one of those three areas.
One of my former bosses used to tell me, “If you’re about everything, you’re about nothing.” Being about something – an economically-diverse, small, all-women’s college focused on health care -- appears to be working for Salem.
· Enrollment numbers have increased significantly each of the past two years;
· The college now ranks second in the state of North Carolina (behind Davidson College) in the US News and World Report rankings of liberal arts colleges;
· And Salem ranks number one nationally among liberal arts colleges in “social mobility” – a measure of a college’s success in graduating economically-disadvantaged students – turning around a very low ranking in 2017.
None of the moves it has made guarantees Salem’s long-term survival, but the strategy points a way that could make admissions officers’ jobs a bit easier going forward: find a distinctive focus for your college, then aggressively go after people from across the economic spectrum that fit your admissions criteria.
Okay, enough sympathy for the admissions officers. Get back to work. Where is our Class of 2028?
References:
High school graduate trough: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/15/more-high-school-graduates-through-2025-pool-still-shrinks-afterward
College-going rates: https://theweek.com/us/1021682/americas-college-crisis
International student enrollment in US colleges: https://www.statista.com/statistics/237681/international-students-in-the-us/
Supreme Court ruling on race-based affirmative action: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-06-29/supreme-court-strikes-down-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions
Males college enrollment and completion: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-male-college-crisis-is-not-just-in-enrollment-but-completion/
Salem and diversity concerns: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/05/30/controversy-over-diversity-office-salem-college
Salem and social mobility: https://www.salem.edu/news/2022/9/salem-college-ranked-no-1-us-news-world-report-social-mobility-ranking
Salem enrollment strategies: https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2023/02/27/salem-illustrates-how-pivot-may-be-needed-recover-admissions#:~:text=“Salem%20is%20radically%20inclusive%2C”,men%2C%20as%20many%20have%20done.
2023 Salem College entering class demographics: https://www.salem.edu/news/2023/8/salem-college-experiences-second-year-record-growth