Recruitment of College Students Is Truly Big Business

The Advisory Board Company, a research, technology, and consulting firm, is buying Royall & Company, a Virginia-based business specializing in student recruitment, for $850 million. (See The Chronicle story here.)

I inherited a relationship with Royall when I assumed the presidency of a small liberal arts college. The college seemed happy with Royall because Royall was largely responsible for a precipitous increase in student applications. That’s the reason colleges and universities hire Royall and firms like Royall: to increase apps and enrollment.

Academic Fit: Finding the Right Student Body

It’s best to enroll at a college where you’re a good fit not only culturally but also academically. If you’re keen on attending a private college, this list of the 102 smartest private colleges (based on SAT scores) might come in handy.

Academic fit is actually kind of a big deal.

Financial Aid Strategies

I’m assuming there are ways to position yourself to maximize your financial aid award. I’d be shocked if there isn’t. But I’m not a financial aid expert and, quite frankly, I have no desire to become one. Yet I thought this MarketWatch article today on “How to increase your chances of getting college aid” contain some helpful tips, so I’m passing it along.

I’ll mention again a point I made earlier about the potential impact of the order of your list of 10 schools in the FAFSA. I’ve also written about the possibility of your admission prospects being adversely impacted by the mere request for financial aid.

Successfully navigating the financial aid minefield isn’t easy. If you manage to do it well, the college should award you 3 credits.

College Graduates, Be Careful What You Ask For

Many college students aspire to that plum corporate job. But is it as plum as they think? Perhaps not.

If You’re Interested in Journalism . . .

If you’re majoring in or considering majoring in journalism, you’d do well to listen in on Barry Ritholtz’s interview of William Grueskin, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism and former Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal online.

If You’re Considering Law School, You’d Better Read This

“Over a third of people who graduated law school in 2013 either didn’t have a job or had one that had little to do with the fact that they had gone to law school for the last three years.” Natalie Kitroeff, “Four Charts That Explain Why America Has Too Many Law Schools,” BloombergBusinessWeek.

As Far As Colleges Are Concerned, The Status Quo Is Unsustainable

“[T]he status quo is not sustainable. Unrelenting demand for better-educated workers, rapidly developing technological capacity to support learning digitally and the soaring costs of conventional campus life are driving us toward substantial change.”

This quote was lifted from an op-ed in the December 11, 2014, online edition of The New York Times (available in print in 12/12 NY edition), penned by Mitchell L. Stevens, an associate professor of education at Stanford and co-editor of “Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education.” Professor Stevens’s op-ed hit the nail on the head. Here are a few other of his thoughts:

Iowa’s Colleges Are Hemorrhaging Students

Enrollment at Iowa colleges and universities has fallen by more than 51,000 students in the past three years. That’s a decline of roughly 16%. That’s huge.

What’s going on in Iowa or, perhaps more specifically, what isn’t going on?

Asking for a Letter of Recommendation

Well worth reading (and watching). Thanks to Prof. Rovira, a regular reader of this blog.

The Philosophy of Contemporary Song

I’ve received several requests for letters of recommendation over the last few weeks, so I’m posting this blog by way of advice for those seeking letters of recommendation. If you’re going to ask for a letter of recommendation for graduate school in the humanities, be prepared for the fact that any responsible professor is going to ask you questions about what you want to study and why, and for the fact that a responsible professor will also give you horrible news (check out this more recent Atlantic Monthly article too) about the state of the profession.

You can respond to these questions one of two ways:

1. Like this:

To put it as basically as I can in limited time, I’m heavily influenced by the work of Paulo Freire in literacy studies and pedagogy. But, this transfers over to how I look at works of literature too. I’ve been…

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Enrollment Falls at Nation’s Colleges

Enrollment at our nation’s accredited colleges fell by more than a quarter of a million this fall (yoy), according to a report released yesterday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Given the improving labor market and declining number of high school graduates, a decline was expected.

The sectors that serve the adult, nontraditional student bore the brunt of the enrollment losses: two-year public (mainly, community colleges) and for-profit institutions (although part-time enrollment gained at the for-profits).

The private nonprofits actually gained a little. It was the larger institutions (those with enrollments over 10,000) that grew the most. I suspect these improved numbers were driven primarily by SNHU (discussed below).

Predictably, the largest losses were with students over the age of 24. If you remove from the equation the adult (nontraditional) students who attend community colleges, the national numbers actually held up pretty well.

However, when you look at the state-by-state breakdown of the data, you quickly find some troubling numbers.