Elevating the Public Interest in Enrollment Management

Photo by Allison Shelley/Complete College Photo Library.

“Enrollment management” — or the policies and practices that direct how postsecondary institutions shape their incoming classes through admissions and financial aid — has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. This once-wonky, now-mainstream concept has existed for decades, but is under the microscope like never before. Take, for example, a recent study by the National Association for College Admission Counseling ( NACAC) that found that public institutions, together with private institutions, provide disproportionate institutional aid to students from higher-income backgrounds. These findings build on work with similar results from the Brookings Institution and an entire book chronicling the practice back to the 1980s. Take also the fact that one of the major national foundations in the postsecondary space, Strada Education Foundation, has prioritized price transparency and predictability, two factors that enrollment management practices can obscure.

One of the main tools in the enrollment management toolbox is the discount rate, or the portion of the published price of tuition that the institution marks down through scholarships to attract students. When an institution offers a scholarship via discount, the intent is to induce a student to enroll and pay the remaining costs of attendance. Often, discounted rates vary by student based on sophisticated modeling using details about the student’s background and college-search behaviors. These practices obscure the actual prices students and their families face, often until very late in the decision-making process.

While this practice is not new by any means, its use is controversial, especially in the public sector. And to be clear, public postsecondary institutions do engage in tuition discounting. Research from Strada and HEI finds that average discount rates in the public four-year sector rose from 24 to 31 percent from 2014 to 2022. While some of this aid may be funded through endowments or donations, this increase is also driven by changes in discounting practices.

This is why establishing principles to guide the enrollment management profession and practices is so key. With the support of Strada, a group of enrollment management professionals has articulated principles for reform, including:

• Access and Affordability: All students, especially those with limited financial backgrounds and resources, believe that the door to higher education is open and see expanded pathways of opportunity.
• Tuition and Cost Transparency: Students receive clear, upfront pricing information before they are asked to commit to an institution.
• Aid and Scholarship Lifecycle Sustainability: Students experience affordability as an ongoing commitment, from recruitment through graduation.
• Value and Strong Return on Investment: Students trust higher education institutions to help them pursue meaningful jobs and careers, supported by clear, straightforward communication about completion rates, post-graduation outcomes, and the broader societal and economic benefits of their education.
• Use of Personal Information: Students understand what personal information is collected in the recruitment and enrollment process, why it is collected, how it is used, and how long it is kept. Students are informed about whether and how they can review, correct, or remove their personal information.

At NCHEMS, we believe these principles are a step in the right direction for enrollment management professionals committed to ensuring their institutions remain accessible, transparent, sustainable, and a valuable investment for students. This is especially vital among public institutions, which are entrusted with public dollars to deliver their educational missions. We also believe that these same professionals can be supported in their reform efforts by well-informed coordinating and governing board members and state agency staff.

Indeed, tuition discounting in the public sector has generally not been visible to those in charge of coordinating or governing public postsecondary institutions. In most state postsecondary governance contexts, implementation of admissions and aid policies sits squarely at the feet of institutions. However, the design and implementation of enrollment management practices have implications for how institutional missions evolve, how financial health is sustained, and how the public interest is served — especially in terms of who has access and for whom college is affordable. As higher education confronts new challenges, coordinating and governing board members and state agency staff will need to be equipped with a baseline understanding of enrollment management practice to exercise their responsibilities.

To that end, we advance the following questions as instrumental for those with responsibility for coordinating or governing public higher education institutions that would like to develop an understanding of how enrollment management practices show up in their specific context:

1. How are admission criteria determined within my state, system, or institutional context? What is my role in determining those criteria?
2. What gaps exist in terms of admissions criteria and the profile of matriculated students?
3. To what extent do my state’s institutions offer discounts as part of their financial aid programs? How have those programs changed over time, in terms of the number of students served and the amount of resources allocated and expended?
4. How do state policies promote or discourage tuition discounting, and do those policies and practices clarify or obscure tuition prices and predictability?
5. Which students are most likely to benefit from tuition discounts?
6. What is the relationship between tuition discounting and net tuition revenue in my state, system, or institution? How has that relationship changed over time?
7. In state and system-level contexts, how do students’ net prices by income compare by institution?

NCHEMS has a track record of leveraging data and evidence to inform decision-making for public higher education leaders; in our experience, these questions lead to meaningful knowledge that can inform how public higher education can best move states closer to their goals and their workforce needs. Principles of reform are a key step; meaningful measurement of progress towards that reform is the next.