Is enrollment management really ruining higher ed? (opinion)

If we listen carefully to New America’s Stephen Burd and read the new book he skillfully edited, Lifting the Veil on Enrollment Management: How a Powerful Industry is Limiting Social Mobility in American Higher Education (Harvard Education Press), we’re informed that the “industry” of enrollment management has harmed higher education in major ways. In a recent interview with Inside Higher Ed, Burd asserts that enrollment management has had a disproportionately negative impact on the most vulnerable students by siphoning finite financial-aid resources away from needy students in favor of those with no need. He talks about the rising cost to educate a student due to the “merit” scholarship “arms” race and the catering to wealthy students through high-cost amenities and experiences. In short, Burd claims that the enrollment-management industry “has played a pivotal role in making higher education less affordable and accessible for low-income students and even middle-income students.”

He is not alone, nor is he the first to call attention to this issue. Almost 19 years ago, in November 2005, Matthew Quirk wrote a lengthy article in The Atlantic, citing many of the same concerns that Burd and his colleagues enumerated in Lifting the Veil. Now, however, with a decline in the number of students going on directly to four-year colleges from high school, net tuition revenue is decreasing as more students, many without financial need, are receiving scholarships or, more accurately, tuition discounts, as incentives to enroll. Meanwhile, to afford the “merit” (above need) prizes, Burd asserts that low-income students are being asked to borrow to fund the gap between their demonstrated financial need and the typically lower amount of financial aid awarded.

In the 1970s and ’80s, a fair number of highly selective colleges exchanged financial aid applicant data to level-set the expected family contribution—not the aid award itself, but how much money a family could afford, based on standardized income and asset data. That way, the colleges reasoned, students could make the best decision based on program rather than on price. In the early 1990s, the Department of Justice considered this a violation of anti-trust laws and ended the practice except at a handful of colleges that are need-blind in admissions. That exemption is currently being challenged in the courts.

We believe it was the action taken by the Justice Department that served as the primary catalyst for the widespread practice of data-driven enrollment management in colleges and universities. Where college admission deans once collaborated with colleagues on best practices, over time they became true competitors, trying to out-bid one another to “win” a student.

In his interview, Burd defined enrollment management as “taking a management and marketplace approach to college admissions, and breaking down the firewalls between the financial aid office, the admissions office, the development office and recruitment, among others.” Of course, we believe that colleges should indeed manage their enrollments, making sure that they have students who will succeed academically with the right financial support either from the college, the parents or both.

As colleges became more competitive with one another, the for-profit body of enrollment management consultants emerged. Where there had been basically two major players in the “consulting” world in the 1970s and earlier—the College Board and ACT—hundreds of firms exist today. Ask any chief admissions or enrollment officer and they will tell you that just about every day the inbox delivers another solicitation from firms that claim to have a solution for their enrollment challenges. “Those firms are really what I’m focused on in the book, and their influence, which has only grown with time,” said Burd.

Full disclosure: After a combined 85 years in admissions, financial aid and enrollment management on college campuses, we formed a consulting firm in 2020. While we will do occasional audits of institutional practices and procedures involving admissions, financial aid and marketing, our primary purpose is mentoring/coaching new deans of admission and vice presidents of enrollment. Our views here are based on our four-plus decades at highly selective private colleges and universities, not our four years as consultants.

We would agree that at most colleges—particularly those that are less selective and perhaps financially challenged—the practice of gapping (wherein need minus aid = a positive number) is extremely problematic and limits access and certainly degree completion. Burd and his colleagues rightfully assert that “unmet…