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Campus steps up enrollment efforts

For a campus that grew at a rapid pace in recent years, Sacramento State is now in the unusual position of needing an influx of students.

“We’re not losing enrollment,” says Ric Brown, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. “We’re just not growing as fast as projected.”

To meet its CSU enrollment target, the campus needs to grow 2.4 percent in 2006. That would allow the campus to make up for a shortfall in 2005-06 while growing by 1 percent.

And Sacramento State is not alone. The University is experiencing the same challenges as other universities in California—a drop in the community college transfer rate statewide and not enough students going on to college after high school. “Tidal Wave II is turning out to be a ripple,” Brown says. “The number of students is growing but not in numbers we were expecting.”

To reach target, a joint enrollment committee of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs is looking at both short- and long-term approaches. The hope is that through advance planning, the University can avoid the prolonged slump that occurred in the early 90s when enrollment caps were put in place. Brown says it took seven years to recover when the campus “turned off the flow.”

Short-term goals include:

• Ramped-up international recruitment for 2006-07. For the last three years, international student enrollment has been flat. Among the steps being taken is advertising in the most productive international recruitment journals and sending global education personnel to recruitment fairs.
• A conference this week between University representatives and counselors from all the community colleges in the area. “We want them to know we’re open for all categories of students,” Brown says.
• Personal contact with admitted students with the hope of encouraging them to enroll. All departments were sent a list of students admitted for fall 2006. Department representatives will make a personal call, or send an e-mail or letter to each of them.

In addition to efforts aimed at the next year or two, Brown says the campus is also looking at long-term solutions. Some are aimed at potential first-time students, such as stepped-up outreach visits to high schools.

Others try to determine what makes students enroll in the University and take classes but not return the next semester. A letter and questionnaire were sent to all students who were enrolled in fall 2004 but did not enroll in fall 2005—about 4,000 students—to find out “what happened?” “Four thousand students is a lot of students,” Brown says. “If we can convince just a small percentage of those to stay it could have an impact.

“We’ll be looking at our efforts toward success to graduation,” Brown says. “And what, if anything, could we have done to keep them here. It’s important to get them in, but it’s just as important to get them out.”

He expects results could range from family concerns to an up-tick in the economy to problems with advising. But, he says, the reason should not be because students can’t get classes. “For the last three years the campus has been funded at target but has always come in under, so the schedule has been rich. There are few exceptions today where there isn’t a class available, even in classes with traditional bottlenecks.”

Internal data shows that the large portion of freshmen and sophomores who don’t return do so for academic reasons. A possible solution may be an increased emphasis on tutoring or peer-mentoring. There could also be more focus on catching academic issues early through high school programs such as the Early Assessment Program, or when they arrive through programs like Learning Skills.

— Laurie Hall