Caltech aims to have between 235 and 240 freshmen each year. They have 237 (a few from the waitlist).
Fredonia sponsored a multicultural diversity weekend this past spring. My H overheard a school official telling an African-American family sitting behind us at an accepted student forum about it. My H is not shy. He went over to the man and said my son would like to attend this weekend. So, my son was one of 2 white kids at the multicultural diversity weekend. He had a great time and committed to the school the day he came home. We are from LI and are full pay but S17 did receive merit money.
All: I didn’t intend any disrespect for Fredonia, far from it, and I’m glad to hear that this year’s numbers may be better than last year’s. I picked Fredonia to look at precisely because there’s nothing wrong with it at all, except for being a second- or third-tier public university in a rural area with declining population. I thought that if there was a general enrollment decline, you would see it in places like that (and it seems I was right).
^ I teach at a probably second tier public university in NJ. Our enrollment keeps going up. OTOH, I used to teach at a nearby probably lower tier private, which has struggled to retain numbers.
So I’m guessing that’s where the students are coming from–lower tier privates.
@JHS - I took no disrespect from your comments and understand that you were just using it as an example of a certain type of school After visiting Fredonia, I am so thrilled that my son is going to be going there. He’s enthused. The area is lovely and every person I met there, faculty, staff, enrolled students, incoming classmates of S17 and their parents, were really nice and genuine. I understand that the decline started a few years ago and the school has responded by improving the theater facilities, which are now top notch, and expanding the science programs in bio and chem. I like the fact that he’s in a school which is moderately sized and so does he.
Schools that have problems enrolling don’t tend to want to trumpet that (and it’s less noticeable than overcrowded dorms).
I reckon that lower-ranked (especially rural) privates that are more expensive than publics and directional/open admissions/commuter publics and CCs (especially in regions with declining HS grads like the Northeast and Midwest) are struggling as you see a flight to perceived quality. It seems that most of the schools with overenrollment issues are publics offering reasonable in-state prices, fairly highly regarded, and not in states with falling HS populations.
I started this thread due to reports that Northeastern, BU and BC are overenrolled. All privates, high sticker price and in a state with a declining HS age population.
^ Also all fairly highly ranked, which is consistent with a flight to perceived quality (actually, perceived value) and not rural. So along with the above, add any uni in the top 50 or so, especially if they are urban.
BTW, as an aside, I believe that the IL public directionals outside Chicago have been struggling with enrollment for years now.
Heard today that Pepperdine is overenrolled. That kind of surprised me.
Hmmmm…I wonder if any of these over-enrolled schools are still accepting students off the waiting list… :-?
@Gator88NE Northeastern, BU and BC did not admit anyone from the waitlist.
I recall Lafayette college indicating freshmen would be in doubles and triples. My student is in a quad. My student is ok with the arrangement so far.
I agree with PurpleTitan that this is largely the result of a flight to quality (or flight to perceived quality, or flight to perceived value, if you prefer). Millennials are still facing a tough entry-level job market, and any old college degree is no longer perceived as a guaranteed ticket to a good job. So even as the overall pool of college-bound freshmen shrinks a bit, more of those who are college-bound are angling to get into the “best” schools, or the “better” schools if they don’t qualify for the best. That leads to growing applicant pools and higher yields at many of the top 100 or so private schools, and many or perhaps most public flagships which are often the best school in the state even if not highly regarded nationally. It also helps quasi-flagships like VaTach and Georgia Tech, which while not true flagships are nonetheless rightly perceived as high quality institutions—and because they offer engineering and CS, so much the better in today’s job market.
This intersects with two other trends. One is rising higher education costs which are putting a big squeeze on middle-income households, making cost a more important factor than ever. This makes the handful of college that meet full need more attractive—and since these are by and large the most selective privates, it makes them doubly attractive. It also helps schools that offer big merit awards, provided they have enough merit money to spread around, though at a certain point this becomes self-destructive competition because it cannibalizes tuition revenue which most private schools (those without huge endowments, which is most of them) count as their principal source of funds to pay operating expenses. The other factor (which PurpleTitan hints at) is that millennials are much more urban-oriented than previous generations of college students, which leaves schools like Lawrence and Grinnell in remote rural locations swimming against the tide.
I’d expect those hurt most by these trends would be 1) high-cost, low-endowment private schools without national reputations, 2) non-flagship public universities that don’t meet full need and don’t offer generous merit awards, especially in states with declining pools of HS graduates, and 3) schools in small towns far from major urban centers, where the school itself isn’t big enough to generate a major college-town vibe.
Not surprised that every top-25 school saw increases in application as they are also the ones that have the. Out robust financial aid programs. Unless the below-100 private colleges,slash tuition, the flight to quality and the decreasing population will continue to weigh on them - gone are the 80’s when anyone with a degree could seemingly get a job.
?? My husband and I had top grades and got our master’s degrees in engineering from a top-ranked school in 1986. We sent out 273 resumes all over the country and got only a handful of responses, mostly “no.” We had to move 2,500 miles to get jobs. I remember my FIL saying, “I don’t know how kids are going to make it these days, it’s so hard to get jobs.” I think people look at the “old days” with rose-colored glasses.
@MaineLonghorn, the percentage of college graduates living in their parent’s basements is still at an all time high.
Also, the rose colored glasses phenomenon is interesting, because the greatest number of people that retired in their late-50’s happened in the 1990’s and those are the ones that fill the restaurants on weekday nights today , but they also won’t admit that life for them was as good as it will likely get.
Yes, but this affects only a small fraction of households because stock ownership is so highly concentrated. Roughly half the population owns no stock whatsoever. The top 1% by wealth own about half the stock and mutual fund shares, and the next 9% own another 41%, leaving only 9% of this wealth in the hands of 90% of the population… If you’re a full-pay at an expensive private college, it’s likely your family not only owns stock but probably owns boatloads of it, and a rising stock market makes it even easier to pay that expensive tuition bill—but most of these families weren’t hurting even when stock prices were lower. For an ordinary middle-income family that has scrimped and saved to accumulate, say $50K in stocks and mutual funds (apart from retirement accounts, which sensibly most people don’t want to invade to pay for their kids’ college), a 10% or 20% increase in stock prices might help you sleep a little better at night, but it won’t go all that far toward covering the cost of college. And if you’re at or below the median household income, it’s likely the entire conversation is irrelevant.
Stock ownership is also skewed by age, with older people holding more. Many people don’t acquire significant holdings until after their kids are out of college. The two may also be related—once the kids are out of college and self-supporting, household expenses tend to go down, even as income tends to increase in the normal trajectory of a professional career, leaving more surplus for saving and investing.
^^Graduated 1980 in Michigan to a 19% unemployment rate. Took my highest honors degree to the library, where I worked full time shelving books for a year. I was not an outlier.
Many of my retired friends have enough to put their grandkids thru college now–or at least help significantly. They feel pretty flush as most were doctors, lawyers, and biz people with good but not spectacular incomes and savings in the six-seven figures with little debt. Several just did a $20K/head trip to Africa for example… I passed because–Africa. Always planning next trip. There are quite a few of these folks–even in our small city.