Strategic Enrollment Management

The original SEM plan was rolled out in the Fall of 2016.  

It continued to evolve as we completed or incorporated new tactics as part of our regular processes.

This Fall marks the end of our fifth year of advancing the original plan, and it has been very successful.  This will be the last report specifically on the goals established in the original plan. 

You can see the overall results of our last five years of SEM work in this chart.  Even with the pandemic decline last year, we’ve seen a 7% increase in enrollment since the SEM plan was initiated.

What we have accomplished is particularly impressive when compared with some other institutions, and we are very proud of our work and results. 

This year we celebrate our largest FTIC class in our history - more than 100 students over our previous peak year in 2018.  The recruitment efforts undertaken by our Undergraduate Admissions office throughout the pandemic were remarkable.  Everything from moving DSI fully online in less than two weeks (with a record turnout) to holding countless virtual fairs, tours, FB live sessions and text chats – they pulled out all the stops and then some, and we see the results.  

This giant cohort was met by our First Year Programming staff throughout the summer and welcomed warmly.  They were given financial aid advising by our Financial Aid staff (who were also working feverishly to disperse CARES act and HEERF funding), and they all had their courses scheduled by our First Year Advisors in OneStop.  

Many other offices have also connected with the new cohort and we are thankful for their commitment to serve these students well.

Let's look briefly at each of the goals in the original plan.

Goal 1 is actually going to continue as part of the new SEM 2025 plan.  This goal is to promote a culture of enrollment growth on campus.   Establishing personal connections with prospective students and their families is one of the most impactful recruitment methods we have, and anyone can do this.  We see this work done every day, in every office. We have a strong enrollment culture here. 

Goal 2 has been focused on increasing recruitment of underserved populations, which are roughly half of our overall student population. This involves a variety of efforts to reach different demographics:  first generation students, under-represented minorities, and low-income students.  

To this end, we have dispersed over $20 million in HEERF funds to support over 6,000 students with financial need in the past year.  

This graph shows us both the full population on campus of underserved students (blue line), as well as just the first time in college population (orange bars). With the growth of these students as part of our incoming freshmen class, we hope to see further growth in the full student body,  but the pandemic has made persistence for these students particularly hard. 

Goal 3 has focused on retention.  Although the goal is specifically framed to retain underserved students, in reality, we recognize we need to retain all of our student populations in order to see overall growth in enrollment.  In many cases, the measures we have undertaken to help our underserved students also help the general student population.

Our efforts take place across many offices.  The CARE team in Student Affairs provides critical engagement with students in crisis;  our Success Coaches connect with students having academic challenges, and our OneStop and college advising centers reach out each semester to contact students who are slow to enroll – answering questions and scheduling appointments.

All of that being said, we still see a notable decline for our underserved students this year over last year.  Part of this can be attributed to the level of preparedness of each incoming class.  The characteristics of each cohort do differ. I expect we will see ongoing challenges in the coming year with students whose senior year in HS was completely disrupted.

Strategies for improving persistence get a lot of attention in the SEM 2025 plan.  We know we can do better. 

Goal 4 has been focused on recruitment along the I-35 corridor and we continue to see strong growth here.

This graph shows the number of FTIC students (orange part of the bar), the rest of the undergraduate population (in other words returning students) in the blue, and the graduate population (grey) that come from the I-35 corridor.   Our recruiters in Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City continue to build on these numbers.

Goal 5 has been to increase our non-degree seeking students. These are students taking badges, Life Long Learning classes, and concurrent enrollment classes among others.  As you can see with the grey bar, we were able to recover the lost high school numbers compared to last year when school started late and we couldn’t enroll them by census. 

Goal 6 has been to identify new programming that leads to enrollment growth.  

You can see the positive enrollment impact of some of these newest programs.  Our new Masters in Human Resources Management has seen considerable growth in a short time, and our Bachelors in Media Arts continues to grow as well.

The brand new Master of Science in Business Analytics has 29 students this Fall, and the new Master of Science in Data Science has 12 new students. 

Goal 7 has been to increase enrollments in our online programs.  We currently have 23 online programs which are particularly appealing to returning students who hope to complete their degree but need the flexibility of an online program.  

This graph shows the continuing online majors seen in the blue part of the columns, and the new online majors (in orange).  We saw a dip this year for the first time.

Goal 8 has been to increase enrollment of transfer students.  We have almost as many transfer students come to WSU each year as we do incoming freshmen.  Transfers are an important recruitment segment that we continue to focus on.

We are working especially hard to bring students from WSU Tech to WSU to finish their Associates degree and perhaps continue on with a Bachelors degree.  Unfortunately, these numbers continue to decline.  Our efforts are impacted by the continued downward slide in enrollments in two-year institutions in Kansas.

Declining Community College Enrollment

With the passage of the Promise Act by the state legislature, we may see a turn around in these numbers of transfer students. We are prepared to help students who start at a 2-year institution matriculate as seamlessly as possible to WSU.

The blue line shows that our total numbers have been increasing.  This is due to a significant increase in students abroad who are enrolling in our badge courses.  This can be seen with the rise in the yellow line.

The grey line shows our returning undergraduates.  The decline represents the year over year smaller cohorts we have had for the past four years as these students have graduated.  

The green line is our new undergraduates and we finally got to see an increase in these students for the first time in several years.  International interest in WSU remains very strong and we hope to see these numbers grow again moving forward.

Goal 10 has been to increase enrollment among returning adult students (those over 24 years of age).  We have seen a sizeable overall drop in the past six years. This is linked in part to our continuing decline in transfer students, many of whom are returning adults.  

Goal 11 has been to increase graduate student enrollment.  The red bars are doctoral enrollment, the blue are masters level students, and the yellow are non-degree bound students, often pursuing graduate certificates.   We have seen the most growth in masters level students.  Computer science, in particular, saw an explosion in enrollments this fall and we give a shout out to our international office who helped on-board these students and make them feel welcome. 

With our Fall ‘21 census, we’ve reached the end of our original SEM plan.  The original plan had 11 goals, many of which were specific to particular offices or areas.  As the SEM committee met last year to look ahead and draft a new plan, we recognized the very collaborative nature of enrollment management work and decided to organize our goals and strategies differently.  We also wanted to simplify the plan by focusing on just four goals.

 

 

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Four Goals

1. Advance activities that foster a culture of enrollment growth.

We hope everyone on campus sees some of their work reflected in the plan already, and also sees areas where they could contribute in new ways.

Before wrapping up, I’d like to briefly share the overarching enrollment metrics for the university.

• For 2025, our enrollment goal is 17,000 students.  For Fall 2020 we had 15,550 (down approximately 500 from 2019).  
• We’ve identified growth targets for degree bound and non-degree bound students.
• For degree bound students, we want to grow by 4%, which would add 556 more students by 2025. We will continue to expand our reach along I-35 and I-70, and we hope that with a more welcoming immigration policy, we will be able to grow our international student enrollment again too.
• For non-degree bound students, we want to grow by 45%, adding 733.  Just to put this in perspective, we saw 150% growth in non-degree enrollment over the past five years, so 45% seems like a realistic goal for more modest growth.
• It is also critical to move the needle on retention. We anticipate that with new initiatives such as the FYS, OAT, targeted outreach efforts using Navigate, as well as strong faculty engagement, we will see continued improvement.  
• If we can move our retention numbers from 72% to 75%, we increase our headcount by 200 over the course of 4 years.  

To wrap things up, I want to recognize the work of all who serve on the SEM committee.  This is a list of all of the offices with members who contributed to our new 2025 plan.  The list illustrates how this work touches all areas across campus.  This is highly collaborative work and we cannot be successful without the efforts of everyone.  

We're thankful for the work this group did throughout the pandemic, not only carrying on with the daily work of their areas, but also engaging in deep and reflective conversations to craft our new SEM 2025 plan.  A lot of dialogue and work went into this effort and we're very pleased with the outcome. 

Thanks to EVERYONE for their SEM contributions!

Comments and suggestions are always welcome: Carolyn Shaw:  carolyn.shaw@wichita.edu