With the Tuition Transparency initiative that was announced Wednesday, Sept. 12, Elizabethtown College launched a new marketing campaign: “You Minded.” According to Sallie Mae’s “How America Pays for College” national report, 69 percent of families in 2017 did not consider a college because of the cost of attendance.

With Etown’s old model of tuition, the costs were high, but the amount of financial aid a student received was high as well. However, many families only look at the sticker price of a college. Therefore, with Sallie Mae’s report findings in mind, Etown worked to lower the sticker price in order to appeal to more prospective students and increase enrollment.

“Private higher education right now, especially in this area of the country, is really experiencing some challenging times,” Interim Vice President for Enrollment George Walter said.

The average high school graduating class size in Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic region is on the decline, so the pool of prospective students for colleges to recruit has gone down. Additionally, families are more concerned with the cost of attendance, which drives them to look at state schools over private institutions. Since 2014, Etown has seen a general decline in enrollment.

In fall 2014, Etown received 3,299 applications and enrolled 447 first-year students. The next year, 2015, saw a similar amount of applications with 3,292 total, but Etown enrolled 504 students, which is an unusual increase compared to other years.

Four hundred forty-two students, 410 students and 390 students enrolled in the falls of 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.

In general, there has been a decline. Additionally, the number of applications between fall 2017 and fall 2018 dropped substantially, from 2017’s 2,884 applications to 2018’s 1,875 applications. However, this was not an unwanted change.

“We also experienced a pretty substantial decline in applications this year, but it was purposeful,” Walter said.

This is because the fall 2017 prospective students could apply to Etown by using a “fast application” process. Etown reached out to high school students that they believed would be a good fit for the College, and high school students only had to fill out five or six questions to enter the applicant pool.

The fast application simplifies the process for high school students, but it does not really receive applications from high school students who are truly interested in the College. The rate of return on those applicants was very low.

Therefore, Etown did away with the fast application invitation for fall 2018, so the amount of applications lowered considerably.

“What we found was that our yield on applications went up significantly,” Walter said.

Less than 19 percent of admitted students for 2017 actually enrolled in the College. However, for 2018, the yield rate was 26 percent.

That is how Etown stands with its application and enrollment numbers. How does the College shape up with other private institutions in Pennsylvania?

Lehigh University is a larger institution with a national recruitment territory, so its first-year cohort sizes are understandably larger than Etown’s. However, Lehigh has also seen a decrease in enrollment from 2014 to 2017.

The difference between Lehigh and Etown is that Etown’s applications have gone down in addition to enrollment. Lehigh’s applications have increased each year. Lehigh received 11,512 applications for fall 2014 and enrolled 1,299 students, but in fall 2017, Lehigh received 13,871 applications and enrolled 1,234 students. Generally, however, the trend of decreasing enrollment in Lehigh mirrors that of Etown.

For Lebanon Valley College (LVC), there has been a general decrease in applications, yet an increase in enrollment since 2014. The full trend can be seen in the infographic attached to the article. In fall 2014 for LVC there were 413 enrolled students, in fall 2016 there were 428 enrolled students and in fall 2018 there were 473 enrolled students.

According to LVC’s Chief Communications Officer Molly O’Brien-Foelsch, fall of 2018 saw LVC’s largest incoming class.

“LVC welcomed the largest and most diverse class in its history this year, topping last year, which was at that time the largest group of incoming students,” O’Brien-Foelsch said.

LVC generally attributes this to their new Arnold Health Professions Pavilion athletic center, the integration of their Admissions and Marketing & Communications Offices for a new recruitment strategy and their new health profession programs.

Etown, with its new majors and the Bowers Center for Sports, Fitness and Well-being, is implementing similar recruitment strategies to LVC. Potentially, these strategies might yield similar results as LVC.

“I believe that the growth in new, meaningful academic programs combined with a purposeful approach to [the Bowers Center] results in our removing these as comparison points where they may have had an advantage,” Walter said.

Walter, the senior staff, the Office of Admissions and other groups on campus have addressed the issue of declining enrollment in various ways to expand Etown’s outreach into a shrinking demographic pool for prospective students.

Etown is not the only private institution struggling with applications and enrollment, but, as seen with LVC, it is possible to see an increase in enrollment using new marketing strategies. With Etown’s new Tuition Transparency initiative, as well as every other strategy they are using, the College hopes to see an increase in enrollment yields.