External conditions are having an increased influence over admissions decisions in colleges and universities across the nation, according to a report released last month by Inside Higher Ed, an online publication for higher education professionals. These conditions include worries about potential payment and rising costs of tuition.
The report, based on a survey of 462 senior admissions officials at nonprofit colleges and universities, found that 22 percent of admissions officers at all four-year institutions surveyed have been forced by the economic downturn to pay more attention to applicants’ abilities to pay full tuition.
Additionally, 75 percent of officers named rising concerns from families about tuition and affordability as the most important challenge facing their institutions in the next two or three years.
Many admissions officers also said that recruiting more out-of-state and international students, who pay a higher tuition rate, was a very important strategy for admissions and enrollment targets over the next two or three years.
MU Admissions Director Barbara Rupp said the results found in the report do not apply to admissions at MU.
“We have completely need-blind admissions,” she said. “It is true that we are recruiting more out-of-state students, but that is primarily to offset the decline in high school graduates in Missouri.”
More than half of those surveyed at public research universities and more than a third at four-year colleges responded that they had been working harder to recruit more students who do not need financial aid and can pay full price tuition, the report stated.
MU’s Senior Associate Director of Admissions Chuck May said a rise in tuition costs and a drop in the number of Missouri high school graduates are the two biggest concerns facing admissions at the university.
“With the decrease in the number of Missouri high school graduates, we have been ramping up our out-of-state efforts in preparation for the decline,” May said. “We’ve known for many years that the decrease was coming and have been taking steps to offset the decline with increases in non-resident students.”
Despite the challenges facing admissions in the state, May said MU has not fallen into the full-pay student trap that the survey reported.
“We do not target students by income levels,” he said. “We target students that are admissible to the university and that we feel would be successful students at Mizzou.”