Enrollment Management Report

Enrollment Management Report

Submitted to the President

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? By the Enrollment Management Workgroup

February 17, 2006

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

??Strategic enrollment management is a comprehensive process designed to help an institution achieve and maintain the optimum recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of students where ?optimum? is defined within the academic context of the institution. As such, SEM is an institution-wide process that embraces virtually every aspect of an institution?s function and culture.?

Michael Dolence, Strategic Enrollment Management

Introduction

On October 4, 2005, President Passer formed the Enrollment Management workgroup, the Recruitment workgroup, and the Retention and Persistence workgroup.? These three groups were jointly assigned the task of ?defining outcomes and measures related to enrollment management, as well as coordinating?to develop a plan to increase enrollment and more effectively address community needs.?? It is the belief of the Enrollment Management workgroup that this report responds to the components of the assigned task with varying degrees of success.? Areas of institutional weakness make it difficult to fully address all elements of the task in the timeframe allotted.? Where applicable, those areas of weakness are identified in the report with recommended solutions included.

This enrollment report represents the cumulative efforts of the Enrollment Management workgroup, the Recruitment workgroup, and the Retention and Persistence workgroup.? The report strives to identify current enrollment issues at NPC, place those enrollment issues within the larger context of institutional planning, and make a series of recommendations regarding data collection and analysis, enrollment-related projects, and placing enrollment management within the organizational structure of the college.

This report is not a comprehensive study of NPC enrollment decline, its causes, and possible long term solutions.? Given the lack of available data, inadequate institutional data analysis, lack of systematic strategic and financial plans, and the current presidential search, it would neither be productive or realistic to offer such a study at this time.? Rather, the core of this report states the opposite:? NPC has a great deal of work to do at the institutional, division, and department level to prepare itself for such a study and the attendant conclusions.

Northland Pioneer must address a number of fundamental enrollment issues, preferably in the development of its strategic plan.? Since the institution has not currently done so in a systematic manner, it is difficult to respond in a meaningful way with strategies to reach targets that do not exist.? Specifically, an enrollment management process should operate to achieve certain enrollment targets and institutional objectives.? Some of those targets and objectives may include:

Targets

Target numbers for total FTSE, semester on-campus FTSE, NAVIT FTSE, Dual FTSE, short-term FTSE;
Target numbers for aggregate FTSE growth, FTSE growth within all or specified programs and departments, and FTSE growth in specified instructional modalities;
Target numbers for retention (in semester) and persistence (semester-to-semester) for various aggregate student populations;
Target numbers for recruitment contacts among various aggregate potential student groups;
Target numbers for retention and persistence based on student involvement in institutionally-funded programs and projects.

Objectives

Identify a specific institutional message and image that should be demonstrated to the district;
Develop a systematic set of processes to identify specific community and district needs, then use those processes to identify said needs;
Identify and/or develop integrated sets of programs and projects that respond to those needs;
Develop a comprehensive marketing and community awareness plan that incorporates all elements of the first three objectives;
Identify specific programs with enrollment decline, evaluate data to determine the cause(s) of decline, and determine if the program(s) meets the needs of the district and should receive institutional emphasis;
Establish a systematic data collection, analysis, review, and reporting process driven by identification of specific data questions that require answers;
Develop a process for implementing institutional changes based on data analysis, review of the effectiveness of institutional change, and ongoing use of data to create a ?data process? rather than a one-time ?data product?.
Ongoing review of the institutional structure and allocation of resources, keyed to aligning structure and resources to most effectively meet the objectives noted above.

Lacking answers at the strategic level to most of these targets and objectives, the workgroups could not produce a ?strategy? report.? Instead, the report focuses on defining the college?s current ability to respond to enrollment issues and urges a proactive, systematic process to defining enrollment issues and managing the institutional approach to those issues.

Following a summary of the current enrollment issues at NPC, the report is broken into three segments.? The Data Segment discusses the data request and review experience of the workgroups, the perceived state of data requests, collection and analysis at the college, and offers suggestions to improve the quality, quantity, and use of data in the enrollment management process.? The Projects and Proposals Segment offers a series of recommendations focused on improving student recruitment, retention, and persistence.? This section emphasizes projects and proposals that are tied to widely-accepted best practices for recruitment and retention.? Projects and proposals tailored to address specific causes of enrollment decline or to meet strategic objectives must wait until those causes and objectives have been identified.? The Organizational Structure Segment provides discussion and options related to enrollment management?s place in the administrative and instructional processes of the college.? A number of options are presented for consideration, with the goals being to define the role of enrollment management, identify what group or individual(s) should have primary responsibility for the enrollment management process, and provoke thought on how much and what type of authority should be given to that group or individual(s).

Attached to the report are a set of enrollment-related definitions created by the workgroup, proposals related to recruitment, retention/persistence, and enrollment management, and selected data items.

DATA SEGMENT

Enrollment Status at Northland Pioneer College

As was widely discussed within the college during the fall 2005 semester, NPC?s annualized and semester FTSE are in decline.? The rate of decline varies depending on what factors are considered for FTSE calculation.? The following tables and brief discussions serve to highlight selected elements of the current problem.

Annualized FTSE, FY 98-FY 05

FY 98	FY 99	FY 00	FY 01	FY 02	FY 03	FY 04	FY 05	% change 98-05	% change 03-05
2102	1998	2092	2414	2574	2792	2747	2709	+28.8	-2.98

The Annualized FTSE table does not include 2005-06 data.? We predict that FY 06 Annualized FTSE numbers will drop to or below 2600 FTSE, representing a significant and accelerating decline.

Much of the FTSE growth NPC experienced beginning in FY 2001 must be attributed to the rapid expansion of Dual Enrollment and NAVIT.? In the college?s first three years (FY 01-03) of significant involvement in first Dual Enrollment and later NAVIT, NPC experienced a 25.1% increase in FTSE.? Since the peak year of FY 03, however, various factors have combined to cause increasing erosion in FTSE.? We will discuss this erosion and presumed causes for it later in the report.

NAVIT and Dual Enrollment Graduating HS Seniors, Fall enrollment, FY 99-FY 04

FY 99	FY 00	FY 01	FY 02	FY 03	FY 04
123	209	337	490	451	601

The above table illustrates the rapid growth in district high school involvement in NAVIT/Dual.? Within a five year span, NPC experienced a 400% increase in the number of district high school seniors enrolled in NAVIT and/or Dual credit courses.? This number has declined for FY 05 Fall enrollment, though we do not yet have a number to include.

NAVIT and Dual Fall Semester FTSE, ?On-Campus? FTSE,

and Total FTSE, 2002-05

FTSE type	Fall 2002	Fall 2003	Fall 2004	Fall 2005	% Change 02-05	% Change 04-05
NAVIT/Dual	457	455	598	494	+7.5%	-17.4%
On-Campus	1665	1667	1613	1401	-15.8%	-13.2%
Total	2122	2122	2211	1896	-10.7%	-14.3%

As one can see, there is not a direct correlation between Annualized FTSE growth/decline and NAVIT/Dual growth/decline, but the following correlations do appear to exist:

Rapid expansion in college FTSE mirrored the rapid expansion of NAVIT and Dual from 2000 to 2002. (not included in the above table)
Increase in NAVIT/Dual FTSE from Fall 02 to Fall 04 masked a small decline in on-campus FTSE during the same period.
Significant decline in NAVIT/Dual FTSE from Fall 04 to Fall 05 mirrored significant decline in campus and total FTSE.

Analysis of various recent headcount and FTSE trends identify additional issues.? Some of the more pressing concerns include:

A 25.9% decline in new, first-time college students from Fall 04 to Fall 05
A 20.7% decline in Native American students from Fall 04 to Fall 05
A 28.1% decline in FTSE at LCC and PDC from Fall 04 to Fall 05
A 17.3% decline in male students from Fall 04 to Fall 05
From FY 99 to FY 04, only 4.2% of Dual and NAVIT students completed a degree or certificate with NPC after leaving those programs.
Headcount enrollment in evening courses is declining at a far faster rate than morning or afternoon classes
NPC is losing enrollment in the 19-25 and 30-39 age groups far faster than any other age group

Conclusions

Enrollment decline is rapidly becoming a serious concern for the college.? The enrollment ?bubble? created by the rapid growth of NAVIT and Dual programs has flattened.? Recent declines in Dual enrollment are directly related to tightened restrictions on general education prerequisite enforcement and therefore are not recoverable without policy changes.? NPC demonstrates poor performance in retaining NAVIT/Dual students after high school graduation.? On-campus enrollment decline is widespread, but is a greater problem at campuses/centers from I-40 north.? These campuses have higher Native American student enrollment ? a subgroup suffering the greatest % of enrollment loss.? NPC is losing students from the 19-25 age group ? possibly attributable to ?enrollment cannibalization? via NAVIT and Dual programs.? It also is losing students in the 30-39 age group, typically a group closely identified with job retraining and adult education.? Finally, enrollment decline appears most rapid in evening courses, though we did not have enough data to determine if this was caused by fewer evening course sections, lower enrollment in existing sections, or a combination thereof.

In sum, during the period 1998-2003, NPC enjoyed strong enrollment growth, largely attributable to the growth of NAVIT and Dual programs and heavy Native American student involvement in specific government mandate programs (No Child Left Behind, etc).? From 2003-05, NPC has noticed the acceleration of pre-existing negative trends and the flattening out or decline of formerly positive enrollment generating programs.? As a result, the college has quickly shifted from a mild to significant enrollment decline.

STATUS OF DATA ??????????? COLLECTION, ANALYSIS, AND USE AT NPC

A primary concern of any enrollment management approach is the availability and use of meaningful data related to enrollment.? Efforts to gather, review, and evaluate data for this report demonstrate a number of inadequacies in the college?s current data status.

Specifically, the workgroup has identified the following concerns related to data at the college:

Availability of data that is ?standardized? or defined by the institution as required for internal processes.

Workgroup requests for data the group considers should be readily accessible, ie, enrollment by time of day, enrollment for different subgroups of students, enrollment by age group, enrollment by instructional modality ? took over two months to develop and deliver to the group.? This indicates to the group that the institution has not:

i. Identified which data elements should be routinely captured and preserved for internal use

ii. Established priorities related to the capture and collation of that data

Lack of internal standards for data presentation.

The workgroup struggled with the manner in which data was presented.

i. ?Registrations? were identified as ?headcount?.

ii. Some reports were presented in fiscal years, which cross academic years.? Other reports were presented in academic years.

iii. Data tables designed to be compared to one another at times used different scaling systems, making comparisons difficult.

iv. Data presentation often lacked totaling, making comparison difficult.

v. Use of data presented to the workgroup typically required a restructuring and reformatting of the data to create a useful format.

vi. Data required totaling and basic computational analysis (% change over time, etc) to create a useful format.

vii. In sum, data as presented was not usable for ?preliminary evaluation? without significant work on the part of the requestor.

Based purely on what the workgroup had available, it appears NPC lacks basic information in areas crucial to enrollment management.

Point of Entry data limited to basic demographic information
Point of Exit data is spotty and incomplete
Existing data instruments may not be gathering quantity and quality of information required to inform decision making

i. Student Satisfaction Surveys only address one segment of the student population

ii. Student Satisfaction Surveys have no follow-up component to identify causes of low performance by departments or services

iii. Graduating Student Survey has a certain utility, but is also a self-selecting survey of ?success stories?.

iv. No adequate surveying currently done of non-returners, mid-semester dropouts, stopouts, etc.

v. No adequate surveying currently done of targeted student population subgroups to understand student assumptions about institution, their needs, etc.

Based purely on what the workgroup had available, current data collection, analysis, and presentation lacks basic quality control.

Some reports presented to workgroup lacked keys to indicate definition of terms or abbreviations
Some data presented did not always reflect group requests
Some data presented contained basic computational errors
Some data presented contained basic analytical errors

The college currently lacks a systematic, standardized process for requesting, collecting, collating, analyzing and summarizing data, returning that data to the requestor in a specific format, and then following through with requestor to determine usability and application of that data.

The workgroup could not identify any formal or informal process widely accepted by the institution that would accomplish the goal noted above.
Lack of process has resulted in a data collection environment that ranges from excellent to spotty to non-existent, depending on the department or division.

The workgroup notes that the college currently lacks a process for providing existing available data to relevant employees.

The workgroup admits it is possible that much of the data it assumed to be missing is actually available, but if that is the case, then the data is available but has not been made readily accessible.
The institution currently lacks any systematic process for making employees aware of what data is available, how that data may be accessed, who may access the data, and what reporting and tracking guidelines should be followed for those using the data.

Conclusion

The six issues noted above combine to make an enrollment management process extremely difficult under current conditions.? NPC is not, in a systematic or integrated way, currently a ?data-driven? institution.? We lack basic processes and procedures to make data collection and analysis an integral part of decision making.? We lack the pre-existing structures to allow data analysis to be readily accessible in usable forms.? We lack a baseline set of information that the college has agreed it needs to know and track for enrollment management purposes.? We lack processes to accumulate that baseline set of information.? Finally, it should be noted that current surveying is weighted heavily toward rating institutional programs and services, but NPC spends little to no time identifying the causes of student dissatisfaction.? In short, we are somewhat effective at asking ?what?, but currently are not effective at asking ?why?.? Without understanding the ?why? of student engagement and satisfaction/dissatisfaction, it is virtually impossible to tailor institutional responses appropriately.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND PROPOSALS FOR IMPROVED DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS, AND USE IN THE ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT PROCESS

The workgroup strongly recommends that institutional priority be given to developing responses to the six areas of concern noted above.? Improving data collection itself will not directly generate FTSE.? Good data collection and analysis, however, should be the foundation of any effort to manage enrollment and, at a more macro level, achieve college strategic goals and initiatives.? With this thought in mind, the workgroup makes the following recommendations:

The President should determine which individual(s) or group(s) have primary responsibility for establishing enrollment management data priorities.? These groups should have the authority to:

Identify specific data elements the college should capture and track
Establish priorities and timelines for the collection, dissemination, and use of those data elements
Establish processes by which program implementation and modification based on data elements is tracked and evaluated.

The President or designee(s) should work with Institutional Research and other parties engaged in data collection/analysis to improve quality control in data collection, analysis, and presentation.

The President or designee(s) should evaluate existing data instruments and surveys used by the college, compare those with items identified in recommendation #1, and determine where gaps exist between needs and current capabilities.? Where gaps exist, the President or designee(s) should identify or supervise development of instruments and processes that will achieve college data goals.

The workgroup has provided an example of one such third party instrument, the CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement).? Two of the four recent presidential candidates, for example, extolled the virtues of the CCSSE as a powerful enrollment management tool in their candidate visits.? See attached (Attachment #1) printout on the CCSSE and its cost.
The workgroup also would recommend utilizing existing NPC technologies to gather data when and where possible.? The upcoming move to the web-based COMPASS placement instrument, for example, affords the college the ability to tailor questions to all COMPASS takers before they begin their exam ? guaranteeing a near 100% response rate for specific types of Point of Entry students.

The President or designee(s) should identify a standardized template for requesting data, developing data collection instruments, collecting data, analyzing data, reporting data to requestor, and having data users track and report back on data utilization.

The workgroup has provided a sample of a skeletal data template.? See attachment #2.

The President or designee(s) should develop and disseminate a standardized process for making available data readily accessible to the college community.

Decisions will have to be made regarding the breadth and depth of accessibility to various types of data.
The workgroup recommends utilizing the NPC Infoweb as much as possible for data dissemination.
The workgroup recognizes that many of its recommendations for increased use of server and database driven solutions may involve the decision to hire a database manager for the institution.? For more detailed information regarding this hiring proposal, please refer to the NPC Bridge Plan, Vision #4, Item #6.? (a copy of the Bridge Plan is attached to this document)

Conclusion

It would be at best of little value, at worst counterproductive, to initiate serious efforts to address enrollment management without first making NPC data collection, analysis and utilization both more systematic and more integrated into our decision making processes.? The workgroup argues that our current lack of data collection and utilization has placed us in a recurring reactive mode.? The general feeling of the workgroup is that FTSE becomes an issue when the current FTSE reports show a decline, and slowly vanishes as an issue when FTSE reports show improvement.? Such an approach virtually guarantees that the institution will periodically face ?FTSE problems?, since it has little systematic understanding of trends in its own student enrollment, student expectations, community needs, and coordinated institutional response.? Because data analysis and understanding is fragmented, the resulting response is fragmented and its impact is diluted.

PROJECTS AND PROPOSALS SEGMENT

SHORT TERM RECRUITMENT PROPOSALS FOR ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT AND FTSE GAIN

Enrollment Management, Recruitment, and Retention/Persistence all struggled with the concept of designing programs, projects, and proposals that would attack the current FTSE decline.? These struggles centered on a group consensus that NPC lacks enough data to develop targeted, meaningful responses.? With that issue in mind, the three groups focused on developing program proposals grounded in ?best practice? experience at other institutions, as well as programs that all healthy institutions should operate, regardless of their enrollment status.? The Enrollment Management workgroup strongly recommends that the President not consider what follows as a comprehensive, long-term enrollment management plan.? That long-term plan should be driven by two items:? data and the goals/objectives of the institutional strategic plan.? Since neither of these items currently exists in a usable form, the workgroup decided to follow the pattern of the ?Bridge Plan? for the institution and focus on short-term issues.

What follows are a list of proposals from the three workgroups.? The proposals are divided into categories by Recruitment, Retention/Persistence, and Community Engagement.? Most proposals include a chart outlining specific proposal elements, objectives, and cost elements.? Charts are attached to the end of this report.

NOTE:? The Recruitment Plan specifically avoids offering any predictors of enrollment increase for any proposals.? This is a conscious decision driven by the lack of baseline data available for the relative enrollment impact of current college activities.? We recommend that all recruitment and marketing efforts be tied to data collection and analysis activities, as developed in the Data Segment of this report, to evaluate breadth of contact and effectiveness of those activities.

Recruitment Proposals

The Recruitment workgroup presents a series of proposals tied to four basic purposes.? Specifically, Recruitment identifies a general college need to accomplish the following tasks:

Purpose A:? Provide accurate and timely information about the college to all prospective students;
Purpose B:? Make vital college information available to the community through a variety of vehicles, including:? print media, CDs, personal contact, marquees/billboards, and mass electronic media;
Purpose C:? Work collaboratively and professionally with the college community to attract new students;
Purpose D:? Foster awareness, promote and support a culture of higher education through outreach activities and progressive program offerings.

Please see the attached Recruitment Plan Narrative for a detailed discussion of these items, the challenges and issues related to each item.? This report will summarize the strategies to fulfill each purpose.? Please refer to the attached Purpose matrices for detailed summaries of each proposal.

Purpose A:? Provide accurate and timely information about the college to all prospective students

Purpose A addresses two critical components of any healthy institution?s response to enrollment.? First, enrollment and enrollment management is the responsibility of every member of the college community.? Second, the quality of contact the college community has with a student often plays a vital role in defining that student?s view of the college.? Good customer service ? defined as giving the right information to the right student in the right manner ? lies at the core of Purpose A initiatives.? In sum, the intent of Purpose A initiatives is to standardize and professionalize the information that employees give students, improve employee knowledge of the institution, and improve customer service skills.? Please refer to the Recruitment Plan Matrix, Purpose A, for a detailed summary of recommended initiatives.

Purpose B: ?Make vital college information available to the community through a variety of vehicles, including:? print media, CDs, personal contact, marquees/billboards, and mass electronic media

The Recruitment workgroup feels that the current lack of a comprehensive marketing plan and the resources to fund that plan significantly hamper recruitment and enrollment efforts at NPC.? Focused marketing is essential to recruiting, and focused marketing requires both proper planning and proper funding.? The Recruitment initiatives identified in this report are weighted toward high school student recruiting.? This decision flows from the data-supported assumption that the college is losing contact and name recognition with non-NAVIT/non-Dual high school students and their parents.? The college has also not done an adequate job of encouraging NAVIT/Dual students in transitioning from NAVIT/Dual to regular college enrollment.? This is by no means a comprehensive response to all the recruiting and marketing needs of various district communities or constituencies.? Please refer to the Recruitment Plan Matrix, Purpose B, for a detailed summary of recommended initiatives.

NOTE:? The Purpose B matrix refers to a ?50% increase in the MPR budget?.? Since MPR currently has budgetary responsibility for marketing and non-marketing activities, it is somewhat difficult to provide a specific dollar amount increase.? That said, Everett Robinson has estimated a required increase of $70,000-80,000 to meet Recruitment Plan proposal requirements, postage increases, and address initiatives that may not specifically be identified in this proposal.

Purpose C:? Work collaboratively and professionally with the college community to attract new students

Like Purpose A, Purpose C pushes the idea that customer service improvement will alter the perception the district community has of the college.? Purpose C promotes the idea of a student-focused organizational culture, as demonstrated by an increased commitment to student satisfaction, a more ?student-friendly? schedule of course offerings, and a continued review of outdated programs and new program needs.? Please refer to the Recruitment Plan Matrix, Purpose C, for a detailed summary of recommended initiatives.

Purpose D:? Foster awareness, promote and support a culture of higher education through outreach activities and progressive program offerings.

Purpose D addresses the need to attract and recruit members of the college community, whether it is for lifelong learning, industry training, career redirection, or other student goals.? The ?non-traditional? student is more difficult to identify than the typical high school student, and thus requires different recruiting and contact approaches.? Purpose D promotes efforts to improve the college?s image, name recognition, and visibility in local communities, thus creating a heightened public awareness of the value of higher education and what NPC has to offer.? Please refer to the Recruitment Plan Matrix, Purpose D, for a detailed summary of recommended initiatives.

SHORT TERM PROPOSALS TO INCREASE RETENTION AND PERSISTENCE OF NPC STUDENTS

(Explanatory note:? Please refer to the attached list of definitions used by the workgroup, should any question arise regarding a term or acronym.? For purposes of this report, the workgroup defines ?retention? as the process of keeping students from dropping out during a semester.? The workgroup defines ?persistence? as the process of keeping students re-enrolling from one semester to the next.)

The Retention and Persistence workgroup organized its proposals somewhat differently than Recruitment.? Arguing that the college lacks sufficient data on retention, persistence, student needs, and the relative effectiveness of existing initiatives, the workgroup recommends series of pilot projects and ?general health of the institution? projects.? The overarching goal should be to evaluate the effectiveness of these projects in the next 1-3 years, and at the same time develop a much more comprehensive student needs assessment and student engagement data set.? With the evaluations and data in hand, more comprehensive and long term retention/persistence initiatives can be developed and implemented.

Student Orientation

NPC has attempted a student orientation in different formats at different times in the college?s history.? The universal problem to date has been how best to impart information in many locations to many types of students, each with different issues or concerns.? A web-based orientation platform geared to be accessed by students on-demand may offer the solution.? One advantage to this approach is that its distance education technology focus allows NPC to utilize current Title III dollars to fund the project. Please see the attached orientation mini-proposal and matrix for more detailed information.

At-Risk Student Support Pilot

Student Services and The Learning Cornerstone began development of a pilot Student Information and Support Program for Spring 2006 semester at Silver Creek Campus, well before Enrollment Management workgroups were formed.? Once the Retention and Persistence group formed, this at-risk student support pilot project was simply folded in to the larger set of proposals.? It is already operating in spring semester, funded by the VP for Student Services, as a pilot.? Broader implementation would require an allocation of general college resources.? Please see the attached Student Information and Support Pilot mini-proposal and matrix for more detailed information.

College Success Course

Student Services, Instruction, and The Learning Cornerstone have also been engaged in a year-long discussion of student success courses and their possible effectiveness and applicability to the NPC environment.? It is fair to say that the jury is still out on the feasibility of such a course.? However, since national data strongly suggests that such courses do lead to improved retention/persistence and improved student perception data for the institution, the workgroup is recommending a pilot course at PDC for Fall 2006.? The pilot would involve two sections and