BusinessWest Area Colleges Are Applying Imagination to Enrollment- building Efforts

BusinessWest

Numbers Game Area Colleges Are Applying Imagination to Enrollment- building Efforts By DAN CHASE	AIC’s Peter Miller says that colleges need to be more sophisticated than ever to reach enrollment targets.
American International College is targeting young people in China, as well as individuals who simply can’t find a seat at a four-year school in California. Meanwhile, UMass Amherst is putting added focus on out-of-state students. These are just some of the strategies being applied as area colleges seek to bolster their enrollment numbers, which have been steadily rising over the past several years. This is the season that high-school seniors have been waiting for all year. Upcoming graduation? Guess again. By May 1, all students expecting to go on to college this fall will need to make their decisions regarding where they will go. It’s called Candidates’ Reply Date, and for the admissions departments at area four-year colleges, this time of year is critical. The word from local colleges is that application numbers are strong for the incoming freshman class of 2010, mirroring a trend in place for the last several years. It has been widely reported that, during the first months of the recession, students were returning to school in record numbers. But that trend toward higher application numbers, and resulting higher enrollment sizes, are the only constants in the admissions process. In Western Mass., colleges saw their class sizes swell, but in many cases the competition