Steadily decreasing enrollment rates have had a significant impact at Bradley. In fact, Wyckoff Hall was closed down indefinitely in order to conserve energy at the beginning of this academic year due to a small freshmen class.
While this year’s application pool is larger than last year’s, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Justin Ball said it is difficult to estimate what enrollment will look like when students officially commit to Bradley come May 1.
However, Ball said there is some reason to be optimistic.
“We are considerably ahead of last year in applications and admits, but with yield season upon us and so much stout competition in both the public and private sectors, it is too soon to project,” Ball said.
“There is a challenging climate and demographic challenges in Illinois, the Midwest and across the country,” Ball said. “It is too early in the recruitment cycle to provide an outlook, but we are optimistic about our incoming class.”
Ball works in the Division of Enrollment Management, which aims at promoting Bradley’s various academic and extracurricular experiences to prospective students and has a budget set aside specifically for outreach programs.
“We use our budget for travel to visit high schools, attend college fairs and host programs on and off campus to introduce faculty to students and high school counselors,” Ball said. “We host three types of visit programs throughout the academic year and summer.”
Ball also said they design and print their own recruitment materials and web sites, as well as manage their own digital advertising and social media accounts.
Faculty members also assist in recruiting potential students, whether to Bradley in general or to their department in specific.
Associate professor of English and assistant dean of Undergraduate Studies Robert Prescott attended an event last month to promote Bradley to the area.
“It was an event to make sure that high school guidance counselors, who are directing students in their college choices, understand who we are in the liberal arts and sciences college,” Prescott said. “We wanted them to understand our identity as a college, and we wanted them to think of the distinctive strengths of our programs.”
Prescott traveled to Naperville with members of the Admissions Liaisons Committee, which works with faculty and staff throughout the university to communicate enrollment-related information as well as meet with prospective students and their families at on- and off-campus events.
“We spoke about all sorts of things,” Prescott said. “I spoke [about] the humanities and workplace internships and the importance of applying skills you learn here.”
Prescott also said there were Bradley students at the event to speak.
“The best part of it was this line-up of student majors we had there who really hit the homerun to the guidance counselors,” Prescott said. “We made these claims, but we were followed by students that shared their experiences that what we said was true.”
With efforts ranging from online campaigns to high school outreach programs, the Division of Enrollment Management were continue to keep an eye on future enrollment efforts.
OK. I get it. The cost of a college education has gone up from when I graduated in 1972. But 1600% !! Get real. Has the administration actually identified why enrollment is down? Is the University actually doing anything to make a BU education more affordable; things that won’t lead to a mountain of student debt? Are there initiatives in place to reduce some costs; energy and maintenance, for example? More and more prospective students (and their parents) are starting to question the value of even getting a college education. BU needs to do more than lament dropping enrollment and offer real incentives for students to pursue a BU degree.