“2 percent growth,” the Unicorn, and other fanciful Whitworth myths.
July 29, 2008 | Contributed by Daniel Walters
From today’s Spokesman-Review:
Whitworth’s freshman class is expected to be about 557. That’s an increase of 4.5 percent over last year, while the university’s goal is to grow at 2 percent a year, said Fred Pfursich, dean of enrollment services. “We were planning on having a class slightly smaller than last year,” he said. “But what’s happened is we already have a higher number of students enrolled.”
Ah, yes, the fabled “2 percent growth” limit. Legend has it, if you follow the leprechaun trail through the Forest of a Thousand Dreams, on the vernal equinox under a full moon, you may catch a glimpse of the 2 percent growth limit. Otherwise, you’re not likely to see it anytime soon.
As for this years, figures, I don’t want to say, “I told you so,” but…
In the last two years, we’ve surpassed our growth plan by more than double. The freshman classes last year were each larger than this year’s graduating class. That means the amount of students at Whitworth increases by a considerable amount. Whether or not that growth is “culturally sustainable” or even sustainable with regards to the cafeteria, housing or class size, is debatable.
Keep in mind, we grew at 4.5 percent more than last year, which also had excess growth. This is compound interest we’re talking about.
Granted, student acceptance rates is a tricky guessing game. A large number of students that apply (often because, hey, you don’t have to write an essay) don’t accept. So admissions has to eyeball and estimate, given demographic and admission trends to figure out how many to accept to hit just the right numbers. This year, they were, shall we say, off.
From last year’s March 18th Whitworthian, titled: “Admissions staff predicts decline in freshmen enrolled in Fall 2008.” (This is a truncated version)
Despite an increase in the number of applicants, the admissions staff expects fewer incoming students to enroll for fall 2008.
The regular decision admissions deadline was March 1. Fred Pfursich, dean of Enrollment Services, said there were approximately 400 more applicants this year than last year.
“There were 5,448 freshman applicants for fall 2008 and of those, 2,500 were offered admission for fall 2008,” Pfursich said. “The applicant pool has gone up 8 percent this year from past years.”
With the May 1 national reply deadline for college decisions, the admission staff predicts 515 incoming students for fall 2008. There were 530 incoming students for fall 2007, according to admissions data.
Pfursich said some factors that may account for the decline in the number of incoming students include the current sub-prime mortgage crisis and stocks dropping. The admissions staff predicts that the current economic slump will affect the number of incoming students for fall 2008, Pfursich said.
“There seems to be an uneasiness [this year] for families making huge financial decisions in deciding [to attend] universities such as Whitworth,” Pfursich said.
“The system [yield rates] is pretty accurate,” Pfursich said. “I have been doing this for 13 years now and I have never encountered a situation in which the number of students exceeded or was 100 short of the predicted target [of incoming students].”
…
The percentage of accepted students decreased from 49 percent for fall 2007 to 48 percent for fall 2008.
That is primarily due to the increase in the number of applicants compared to last year, Pfursich said.
However, with the tuition increase this year and the various economic challenges the country is facing, students are becoming a little more hesitant in making their college decision, Pfursich said.
Is anyone honestly surprised by this? Last year we increased about 3.5 to 4 percent. This year, it’s about 4.5 percent. There were (about) 5,050 applicants last year, this year, there were 5,448. But still, we chose to accept (about) 30 more students than last year.
So we expected the numbers of students to DECLINE even though there were MORE applications and we accepted MORE students?
Predictably, instead, this freshman class has about 24 students more. That’s an entire Core 150 discussion groups worth. You thought it was hard to get into Core 350 now? Just wait 3 years. (If 350 still even exists by then.)
At first glance, the theory that less people will attend Whitworth when times are economically rough makes sense. Still, of course, other people may disagree.
“Colleges and universities tend to benefit when economies are bad because more adults will tend to go back to school. People who are let go from their jobs need to find out if the degree they have is still viable or do they need a new degree,” [said Lisa Kujawa, assistant provost for enrollment at Lawrence Technological University]
… “I think more and more students are realizing the value of a higher education degree in getting a job in this economy,” Kohrman said.
In fact, the economy has a sort of counter-intuitive inverse relationship on college enrollment, according to a 1994 USA today article.
College and university enrollments have dropped in a number of states. American Council on Education (ACE) officials attribute the declines in part to continuing state fiscal problems induced by the recent recession, as well as increased job opportunities accompanying the upturn in the economy.
“A rebounding economy reduces enrollment,” notes James Appleberry, president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
To be fair, it’s pretty hard to predict what college enrollment will do in a medium recession. If only we had some sort of historical comparison, from, say, 1991.
College enrollment in public and private institutions increased this fall [in 1991] despite the recession, a … survey shows.
And in 1991, they weren’t even in a college attendance demographic boom. From the Spokesman Article:
”State officials project a growth of 8.5 percent in high school graduates between 2002 and 2o18… It’s too late to pin down exact numbers, but most colleges in the region got a lot more applications this year and will be enrolling record numbers of freshmen.”
From my reading, the notion that recessions actually increase enrollment, is not the exception. It’s practically the consensus. While a recession often ends in budget cuts for state colleges, it causes students from those harried institutions to flock to private colleges, like Whitworth.
So it’s frustrating to watch this predictable, avoidable, mistake unfold.
Just as it was frustrating to see the SAT requirement done away with, even though combining the SAT and GPA is a better predictor of college success than high school GPA alone.
I always believe that it’s best to err on the side of having less students, because our small size is one of our biggest selling points. And while there can be financial problems from having too few students, the problems when you have too many are far more problematic to the student body. When Whitworth overshoots its target for enrollment, it costs them for all four years the class squeezes through Whitworth.
As you know, I’m not I’m fan of Whitworth’s growth. Other people, who want the opportunities a larger school offers, are fine with it.
But either way, let’s make it growth we plan, not growth that we get because we screwed up. If we’re going to grow by 4 percent, let’s say we’re going to grow by 4 percent. Then the appropriate debate can occur.
No freshman wants to hear that he was the result of an “accident.”
Next time, Whitworth should use more protection.
Comments
8 Responses to ““2 percent growth,” the Unicorn, and other fanciful Whitworth myths.”
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I actually wonder how many of those 557 “freshmen” were denied entry to Fall semester but offered Spring/Jan Term instead. I’m guessing that’s equal to the number of transfers. It makes sense. If you’re about to enroll a kid who has enough credits to graduate within 2 or 3 years rather than the usual 4 or 5, put them in as freshman status halfway through the year so they could at least pay one more semester to the school than necessary.
No, there were 2,500 freshmen given entry to Whitworth for the fall semester. 557 – so far – have agreed to attend. That’s about 42 more than we expected.
The spokesman article didn’t specify how many of the 557 accepted applicants are beginning in the fall, so it might even out with some kids immediately dropping after first semester then some others coming in the next. But if it is, as you said, all the students starting in the fall, Whitworth still anticipates a percentage to drop after a semester or two.
You should read the whole spokesman article. It’s more clear.
Whitworth will expect the number to drop, slightly, as people fail out. But then again, there are also a number of people who transfer in at semester.
And that should be taken into account. Doesn’t change the fact that we planned for 515 and got 557.
1. How do they expect people to fail out when a 2.0 ensures your scholarships and grade inflation ensures you won’t get that low anyway?
2. They accepted 2500? Didn’t they receive around 5000 applications? A 50% acceptance rate? That’s fairly laughable.
Good point. A lower acceptance rate makes it look more desirable.
Most students who end up dropping out or transferring choose to do so because they feel uncomfortable at Whitworth, so it could be from a variety of reasons and not necessarily out of failing. I don’t believe this is documented; I’m just going by what I’ve picked up on.
It’s a 48 percent acceptance rate. It was 49 last year. The amount of applications suddenly jumped a few years ago. We’ve become a more selective college, mainly because we have so many more applicants in the last few years.
Part of that’s demographics, but otherwise, it’s sort of mystery. I thought it may have been because we stopped requiring the SAT (the jump in applicants was timed about then) but that seems a bit too simplistic to explain all of the extras. Maybe Whitworth’s just getting more aggressive at recruiting. Of course, I’d feel better about all of it if I felt that our standards were rising along with the numbers of applicants.
Our amount of transfers and fail rates are about similar to most schools. Maybe even a little bit better. Of course, your point about grade inflation stands, Galen. That’s something that Dr. Le Roy has been concerned about.
(Or course grade inflation has been big at the high school level as well. Part of the reason I’m uncomfortable with Whitworth relying increasingly on high school grades to measure admission and permanent academic scholarships.
[...] 2008 | Contributed by Daniel Walters I’ve given Head Admissions Dude Fred Pfursich a lot of flack for assuming the economy would send admissions plummeting, even while applications increased, and [...]