Understanding Enrollment Management: A Guide for College and University Board Members

Governing board members need a firm grasp of the environmental factors shaping enrollment strategies and goals since these factors serve as constraints on any institution’s ability to meet enrollment and tuition revenue targets. These factors include such things as:

• Technological and competitive changes across the higher education and skill credentialing sectors;
• The market position of the institution itself;
• Tuition cost increases that fuel public anxiety over the value of a college degree;
• Public concern over student loan debt levels;
• Demographic trends that affect the number of new students seeking college degrees; and
• Federal and state policies that affect public funding, financial aid, and student access and success reporting requirements.

As Hossler and Lucido demonstrate, these factors have profound implications for an institution’s viability and mission, which is the responsibility of boards to steward. Boards must be aware of them while also monitoring key institutional health indicators such as the college’s tuition discounting and financial aid rates, student debt loads, and student retention and graduation rates—things that colleges and universities can positively control. Understanding Enrollment Management makes clear that how boards organize themselves to perform this strategic oversight is vitally important, as are the decisions that boards make about what data to monitor to guide college or university administrators in shaping long-term enrollment strategies and targets.

Donald R. “Don” Hossler is a senior scholar at the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. Hossler holds the rank of distinguished provost professor emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. He has also served in several leadership roles including the vice chancellor for student enrollment services on the Indiana University Bloomington campus.

Jerome A. “Jerry” Lucido is professor of practice at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California (USC) and also serves as the executive director and founder of the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice at USC.