Spring semester enrollment at the University of Akron is down 3.2 percent from a year ago, giving UA the largest percentage decline for any Mid-American Conference school in Ohio, according to university numbers.
The next closest decline was Bowling Green State University, down 2 percent.
For Akron, it’s next year’s numbers that may offer greater concern: Average ACT and SAT college entrance scores and high school grade-point averages for freshman applicants are down for the second year in a row, running in the opposite direction that officials had hoped a few years ago.
Half of the state funding for public universities is now based on graduation rates. Because UA has a record for one of the lowest graduation rates in the state, officials vowed in 2012 to begin turning away students with low entrance scores in hopes of enrolling students more likely to complete a degree within six years.
Rather than improving, UA now has a pool of lower-performing students, and so far this year has admitted more than 8,000 students with exam scores that are on average lower than the previous year.
Admissions for next year are down, too.
So far this year, 10,568 have been admitted for the next school year, down from 11,384 last year but up from 9,967 in 2014.
As for the number that have confirmed by mid-March that they plan to attend, 1,541 have done so, down 33 percent from the same time a year ago, and a 22 percent decrease from 2014.
Leadership optimistic
Larry Burns, UA vice president for advancement, said the university is targeting a larger geographic area to increase applications.
He said enrollment numbers from fall to fall is the “most robust time of students coming” to the university, but the current numbers are not etched in stone.
“That number will change,” Burns said. “In the enrollment business, we’re concerned every day to try to get as many students as possible, what we’re doing now since the numbers reflect that confirmations are down is to do everything possible to reach out to the students who took the time and effort to apply to make sure they know as much as possible about us.”
In other words, to try to get the students who have been admitted who have not confirmed, and “by confirmation, we mean they haven’t sent in their deposit to reserve a space for the fall.”
Burns said the university is also targeting a larger geographic area. Historically, 80 percent of students are from the five-county Akron-Canton area.
Searching afar
Burns said the university is aggressively pursuing students in major metropolitan markets such as Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Detroit.
“Recruiting these students might be more time consuming. They don’t know as much about the university and may have more choices,” he said. “We will be complementing those efforts with the personal touch of social media by sending videos about student life on campus and the programs offered at the university.”
He said prospective students also may be waiting for their financial-aid letters before making any commitments, and those letters from the University of Akron are going out this week.
“Our application pool is very strong and so is our admitted pool and the average [ACT] American College Testing and grade point average of students being admitted has gone up progressively over the last two years and is staying steady to that,” Burns said.
Faculty concerned
At the last Faculty Senate meeting March 3, Senate President Bill Rich expressed concern with the admissions numbers. The Faculty Senate, the legislative arm of the faculty, meets once a month with the president and provost and its membership to discuss issues and policy.
“This is the biggest decline in confirmed admissions, compared to the same time last year, that we’ve experienced in a long time,” Rich said. “This year as of Feb. 24, there were 1,083 confirmed admissions compared to last year at the same time with 1,654 confirmed admissions and 1,392 in 2014.”
He found a ray of hope in admissions, though.
“Those don’t look so scary; there’s a decline, but we’re still ahead of where we were two years ago,” Rich said. “But the numbers that mean the most are those who pay the deposit [confirmed admissions]. I don’t think enrollment will stay down at 35 percent because there is still time to recruit more students, but the concern is who will be admitted and what are their chances of success.”
Although May 1 is usually the national deadline date for confirmed students, university administrators said the University of Akron like some other colleges still accept new students into the fall.
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.