Electronic poll shows expenses rising for public and private four-year campuses

January 19, 2010: Over the last two years, admissions offices at public and private, four-year colleges and universities across the country have seen their student recruitment costs increase by 10 percent or more, based on a comparison of median admissions expenditures collected in a recent Noel-Levitz poll.

Public universities saw the biggest jump, with median spending in 2009 rising to $461 for each new student recruited, compared to $398/student in 2007, an increase of 15.8 percent. In comparison, private colleges saw their median recruiting costs rise to $2,143/student in 2009, up from $1,941/student in 2007, an increase of 10.4 percent.

The greater spending at private colleges is a longstanding pattern, with private colleges typically spending as much as four times more for each new student recruited than public universities.

The findings are according to a Web-based poll of non-profit, degree-granting institutions conducted in November 2009 by Noel-Levitz, a leading consulting firm for higher education.

To determine the cost of recruiting a single new student for each institution, the narrowly-focused poll asked respondents to provide their recruitment and admissions budget for 2008-2009. This figure was then divided by the total number of new undergraduate students (first-year and transfers) that respondents reported had enrolled over the course of all terms beginning in 2009.

Respondents were instructed to include the following components in their budget figures:

• staff salaries and benefits
• capital costs
• supplies
• travel
• publications
• consultant services
• vendor/outsourced services
• supervision

The findings showed the median recruitment cost per student in 2009. To determine the percentage increase, the resulting data were then compared with an earlier poll conducted in 2007 which requested identical data.

In addition to the changes reported above, a closer comparison of the 2009 and 2007 data, beyond the median, showed that costs did not increase for certain types of institutions. For example, at private institutions with larger new student enrollments, costs held steady, and at public institutions with smaller new student enrollments, costs actually declined.

More findings included in the report:

• Institutions with smaller enrollments tended to spend more per student than institutions with larger enrollments;
• Private institutions used more staff than did public institutions to recruit new students, with a ratio of one FTE staff member for every 35 undergraduates recruited in 2009, compared to a ratio of one FTE staff for every 122 undergraduates recruited at public institutions; and
• The current rise in median costs, while up significantly from 2007, is similar to the levels of spending in 2005.

For a full copy of the report, visit www.noellevitz.com/BenchmarkReport

ABOUT NOEL-LEVITZ
Noel-Levitz is a nationally recognized higher education consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning for enrollment and student success. The firm offers consulting, custom research, benchmark data, innovative tools and technologies, side-by-side plan development, and professional development. Visit www.noellevitz.com.

Posted 01/20/10 to www.NASFAA.org. Posting of press releases is done as a service to Members and does not imply endorsement or support by NASFAA. NASFAA does not review this information for content or accuracy.