College enrollment

At the University of Connecticut and Trinity College, not only are applications up. So is the "yield," the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend. So are SAT scores. The University of New Hampshire reports a substantial increase in high-achieving applicants. Tufts reportedly has to turn away the salutatorian of a Boston charter school, the competition for slots is so fierce.

With a few exceptions, these are flush times for college admissions in a region where total enrollment had plummeted from 827,000 in 1992 to 795,000 in 1996. New England's share of total U.S. college enrollment had decreased from more than 6 percent in the mid1980s to 5.5 percent in 1996. But an upturn is evident.

New England college and university campuses received more than 510,000 freshman applications for the fall 1999 term as of the traditional deadline of May 1-an increase of 7 percent over the previous year, according to the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) 1999 Student Vacancy Survey of 217 undergraduate campuses.

The 7 percent increase in freshman applications is the largest single-year jump in recent years. New England colleges and universities saw only modest annual increases in the number of freshman applications from 1994 to 1998.

More than 64 percent of New England institutions reported an increase in fall-term freshman applications this year, according to the latest survey.

Freshman applications to New England's six state "land-grant" universities increased 9 percent overall, following three years of no increase. More than half (54 percent) of New England public colleges and universities saw an increase in freshman applications in 1999, with 18 percent reporting increases of 10 percent or more.

Among New England's private colleges and universities, 69 percent reported increases in fall-term freshman applications as of May 1, and 40 percent reported increases of 10 percent or more.

NEBHE found that freshman applications to New England colleges and universities from 1995 to 1999 rose by a total of 10 percent, mirroring a projected 10 percent increase in high school graduates during that period. The more recent one-year jump of 7 percent, however, exceeds the 4 percent growth in the number of New England high school graduates projected by the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE), which tracks demographic data nationally.

To be sure, some of the increase in applications reported by NEBHE may be attributed to multiple applications filed-often via the Internet-by prospective students. (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, for example, reports that 70 percent of newly admitted students applied online.)

But another reason for the jump in applications is that more young people are aspiring to college. A record 67 percent of the 2.8 million students who graduated from U.S. high schools in the spring of 1997 were attending college in the fall of 1998, according to federal figures. By 1999, U.S. colleges and universities enrolled nearly IS million students more than 40 percent of them parttime-and the U.S. Department of Education has projected that total enrollment will top 16 million by the year 2007.

WICHE projected that New England high schools would graduate about 144,000 students in the spring of 19995 percent of the national total.

NEBHE has surveyed New England higher education institutions every year since 1960 to measure college application trends and to determine which campuses would consider additional new freshman and transfer applications for the fall term as of May 1.

The 1999 survey revealed that 56 New England institutions-including 11 fouryear public colleges and universitieswere no longer considering applications for the freshman class as of May 1.

DEMOGRAPHIC REBOUND?

New England is gradually recovering from a severe 15-year downturn in the number of 18-year-olds which began in 1979 and ended in 1994. Indeed, from 1985 to 1995, college enrollment grew by 21 percent nationally. But in Maine, for example, where poor demography is compounded by historically low college aspirations, the figure was 8 percent.

Since 1994, a steady, moderate increase in the number of high school graduates has been projected, and New England colleges have seen modest increases in the number of freshman applications.

The moderate increase in the number of high school graduates is projected to continue into the next millennium and reach its peak between 2004 and 2008 in New England. "The larger pool of high school graduates means that freshman applicants will face more admissions competition over the next four to eight years," said John C. Hoy, president of NEBHE.

New England's demographic rebound, however, will continue to trail the nation's. By the year 2012, the number of high school graduates will grow by 31 percent in the West and 23 percent in the South, but by just 17 percent in the Northeast and 10 percent in the North Central states, according to WICHE and the College Board. Maine is among a handful of states where the number of graduates will actually decrease.

Notably, nearly half of the growth in U.S. college enrollment during the past decade has occurred in the South, according to the Southern Regional Education Board. States such as North Carolina are wrestling with questions of where to educate tens of thousands of new college students over the next decade.

Notably, some New England educators, have suggested that slow-growing New England prepare to attract some of the overflow from California's tidal waves of high school graduates, perhaps by lobbying for federal aid incentives to lure students to the region.

DIVERSITY

If the demographic dilemma had a silver lining it was that many New England colleges reached out to women, who now represent 56 percent of total enrollment, as well as older students, working people and minorities.

African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and certain sub-groups of AsianAmericans remain disturbingly underrepresented on many New England campuses, especially in science and engineering fields. But initiatives such as NEBHE's Equity and Pluralism Action Program are making strides in increasing the success of minorities in New England higher education. African-American enrollment at New England colleges grew by 25 percent between 1990 and 1995, while Hispanic enrollment grew by 45 percent and Native American enrollment by 55 percent.

Still, college participation rates among minority students remain low. Though African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans represent more than 12 percent of New England's 18- to 24-year-old population, they account for under 10 percent of the region's college enrollment.

Moreover, enrollment trends affect different kinds of institutions differently. For example, applications and enrollment at women's colleges nationally have grown significantly since a series of early 1990s studies suggested that coeducational settings shortchange women academically.

New England campuses attract about 40,000 foreign students annually-almost 9 percent of all foreign students in the United States. In addition, fully 25 percent of the students enrolled on the region's campuses travel to New England from other parts of the United States to attend college.

Diversity is not a frill. It is all that keeps New England viable. If it weren't for foreign immigrants, the workforces of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island would have shrunk during the past decade. As a recent Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation report noted: "Welcoming foreign immigrants and training them to play a fruitful role in the state's economy is therefore more important to our continued prosperity than has been commonly recognized."

"The growth in New England college applications holds promise for solving New England's manpower shortage," concluded Hoy of NEBHE. "Now the key is to encourage the new freshmen on campus to stay through graduation and pursue their careers here in New England."

John 0. Harney is executive editor of CONNECTION.

Copyright New England Board of Higher Education Summer 1999
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