NEWS
4 | DECEMBER 11, 2020
Enrollment continued from page 1 The pre-COVID-19 Fall 2020 assumptions and targets for first-time freshmen were 4,444 acceptances, 889 deposits, and an end enrollment of 800 students. Assumptions and targets for transfer students were 630 acceptances, 441 deposits, and an end enrollment of 334, according to Spencer. After accounting for everything that was known about COVID-19 in March 2020, new targets were established for the fall 2020 semester enrollment, according to Spencer. The new targets for first-time freshmen were 731 deposits and 643 enrolled, and 318 deposits and 248 enrolled transfer students, according to Spencer. According to the data Holloway presented at the Nov. 18 Board of Trustees meeting, the first-time freshman enrollment target was missed - 614 students were enrolled. The transfer student enrollment was exceeded - 276 students were enrolled. The University received 5,708 applications for first-time freshmen, down approximately 4.4%, or 252 applications, compared to the fall 2019 semester, according to Holloway’s data. The percentage of first-time freshmen accepted increased to 80.19% from the Fall 2019 percentage of 74.24%, according to the data provided by Holloway. Of the 767 first-time freshmen who submitted deposits, only 614 enrolled for the fall 2020 semester. This means the percentage of students who submitted deposits, but did not end up attending, almost doubled, with this semester’s “melt” being 19.95% compared to the Fall 2019 “melt” of 11.29%, according to Holloway’s data. According to Spencer, melt is the “differential between those people who said that they’re going to come with a deposit, and those who actually ended up showing up on the first day of class.” The University received 723 transfer student applications, down approximately 30%, or 219 applications, compared to the fall 2019 semester, according to the data provided by Holloway. The percentage of transfer students accepted increased to 68.46% from the Fall 2019 percentage of 66.67%, according to Holloway’s data. Of the 350 transfer students who submitted deposits, only 276 enrolled for the fall 2020 semester. This means there was a “melt” of 21.14% - up almost 5 percentage points from the fall 2019 semester “melt” of 16.3%, according to the data provided by Holloway. Holloway said when she presents enrollment data, she includes the models from 2008 to the present year to demonstrate why the model has had to change throughout the years. She highlighted the data from 2008 when the University accepted
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approximately 56% of its applicants and received 723 deposits, and in 2020, even with an approximately 80% acceptance rate, the University only received 767 deposits. In an interview, Spencer said although “the number of applications was down compared to last year, accepts were actually up. “It’s really important to highlight the profile of those accepts for being relatively the same,” he added. “It wasn’t a drop in profile. It was because we did a better job at completing those [acceptances]. So, everything was looking good on the accepts.” He said when COVID-19 hit, the number of deposits declined as well as the number of students who actually enrolled. “We were on track, and then everything went off the rails,” Spencer added. Holloway agreed with Spencer that COVID-19 is the main reason enrollment numbers are down. “It’s COVID, and the uncertainty that COVID is,” she said. Holloway added particularly in the Northeast, the number of high school students going to college this year has declined. She said another reason for the enrollment decline is because some of the community colleges are struggling this year, which cuts down on the number of possible transfer students. Holloway said the University is now in competition with colleges that are struggling to find students that it hadn’t been in competition with in previous years, such as the UMass system. Spencer said the UMass schools are “doctoral institutions” that tend to recruit internationally and out-ofstate. With the pandemic, recruiting these types of students became more difficult, “so therefore, what they did is they went to the students in their backyards, those who traditionally enrolled at the state universities,” he said. “Those particular in-state students who traditionally would enroll in a state university, but now given the option to go to UMass, may in fact choose UMass over the state university,” Spencer added. Holloway said another reason enrollment numbers are down is because “we have an increase in the number of students who have more financial need, who are interested in going to college.” She added the difficulty of that is there is a limited amount of financial aid that the University can provide and “more people need or have more need.” During the Nov. 18 Board of Trustees meeting, Holloway said one of the reasons FSU’s enrollment is lower than that of its sister institutions is because of issues related to P code and income. She said MetroWest is one of the highest income and highest educat-
ed areas surrounding Framingham. She added her office will look into the new census data to see how these factors may be affecting recruitment. Holloway said two highly educated parents will most likely want their child to go to a “perceived” higher-ranked or private university. “So, we are not just competing against our sister institutions for that, but also competing against private institutions,” Holloway added. She said this is not an excuse, and asked if that is the case, how does the University market itself toward that particular population? Holloway said once her staff receives the National Student Clearinghouse data, they will be able to see what other schools the accepted students had applied to, which school they chose, whether that school was public or private, and if there is a school in particular the University is losing students to. n a ec. 8 email, llen immerman said, “Over the previous four years, first-time first-year retention rates ranged from 70% - 76%, with an average of 73.5%. So, we would have liked it to be at 74% or higher. However, this year, it was 69%.” immerman added, e attribute a significant part of this decline to the impact of COVID-19.” In a Nov. 4 interview, Holloway said another issue impacting overall enrollment is retention. People are “thinking about coming back or not thinking about coming back because their situations have changed,” she said. “They don’t have the money they thought they had. “We’re still really struggling trying to help students,” Holloway said. As an example, she said through the Cares Act, the federal government has provided money that the Financial Aid Office has been struggling to give to students because they are having trouble getting the students to respond and fill out the form. Holloway added calls to the office of Kay Kastner, coordinator of student support initiatives, have gone down this semester. She said she still has laptops available in her loaner laptop program. According to Holloway, she started with 70 laptops at the beginning of the semester. As of Dec. 8, seven semi-new and 18 refurbished laptops remain as well as five Apple MacBooks, but only for specific courses. “We should not have as many left by this time of the semester,” Holloway said. “I have more money in my student support fund than I should have. “I know students are struggling or having emergencies, and we’re just not hearing from them,” she added. “I chair the [Student Programs and Support] continuity team,” she said. “And that’s something we’ve been struggling the most with - we know that there are students out there that need help. “How do we get to them when their screen is off, their video’s off, and
they’re not responding?” Holloway asked. “And they may have very good luck. I’m not judging anybody - people have a lot going on - but it is this internal struggle. We want to help them to be able to stay in school.” In a Dec. 8 email, Glenn Cochran, associate dean of students and student life, said, “Our official opening fall occupancy was 726, or about 37% of our capacity, and we currently are at 707.” He said during regular academic years, it is common for occupancy to decrease throughout the course of the semester. Cochran added, “As of early October, colleagues at Massachusetts state institutions were reporting occupancy ranging from 9% to 60% of capacity. “It is important to remember that occupancy is a snapshot in time - so we note an opening occupancy, but it is a number that changes from day to day,” he said. “In addition, some institutions opened late or went to remote classes at differing points in time.” Holloway said she believes FSU ranked lower in residence hall occupancy than some of its sister institutions partially because some universities re uire all students who are taking in-person classes to live on campus. She said another reason is the University let students out of their housing agreements later than some sister institutions. She added this was because the University did not want to put the financial burden on its students when there were still some unknowns such as how many classes were in person, whether fall sports would take place, and whether the University was going to be able to open depending on what the state and the city were doing. Holloway said FSU’s low occupancy rate was caused by a “myriad” of reasons and she “hesitates” attributing it to just one. For the spring semester enrollment, the focus will be on the students who chose to defer their acceptance from the fall 2020 semester to either the spring 2021 semester or the fall 2021 semester, according to Spencer. Deanna Girard, a Fall 2020 accepted student, said she chose to defer her acceptance until the fall 2021 semester. “I was nervous about being on campus with COVID and everything because I just didn’t want to bring it home to my family if I went home on weekends,” Girard said. She said she originally planned to only defer to the spring 2021 semester, but decided to wait until fall so she could work full time and save up money. Spencer said in previous years, the University found it difficult to recruit for the spring semesters, and usually focused on the fall. “However, last year, the National
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