Happy New Year! Over the past six weeks hundreds of messages have flowed in about the UToledo enrollment, financial and morale crisis. The depth of the disconnect between senior leadership and middle management about the direction of the university is stunning.
After the December UT board of trustee meeting a local paper ran an article about the “rosy” enrollment outlook for Spring and Fall 2024. The two reports that track recruiting and enrollment paint a completely different story. Not sure what is going on, but will let you read the reports for yourself and decide if things are rosy at UToledo https://rocketnetworker.com/2024/01/10/rocket-nation-recovery-part-42/
If you were a trustee preparing for the February board meeting how would you interpret the following enrollment reports?
Fall 2024 Recruiting Funnel is used to track the “pipeline” of prospective students considering UT shows that:
- Inquires 2023 = 54,188 and 2024 = 32,364 (down 21,824 or 40.3%)
- Applicants 2023 = 9,964 and 2024 = 9,629 (down 315 or 3.2%
- Completed Applications 2023 = 7,684 and 2024 = 7,510 (down 174 or 2.3%)
- Admitted 2023 = 6,737 and 2024 = 7,096 (up 359 or 5.3%)
- Confirmed 2023 = 317 and 2024 = 288 (down 29 or 9.1%)(note that 100% of this number is Direct From High School).
Spring 2024 Enrollment Tracker is used to track students registered to begin class next week. The January 5th report shows that:
- Undergraduate Spring 2023 =10,477 and 2024 = 10,323 (down 124 or 1.2%)
- Graduate Spring 2023 = 3,275 and 2024 = 3,169 (down 106 or 3.2%)
- Total Spring 2023 = 13,722 and 2024 = 13,492 (down 230 or 1.7%)
- New First Time students are down 23.6%
- High School College Credit Prep represents 944 of the total above
- New Transfer Students are up by 21 students
If you were a trustee, what questions would you ask about these “rosy” enrollment numbers? How confident would you be that the current leadership team has the crisis management competencies, skills, energy, and support from faculty and staff to urgently turn this around?
How comfortable are you that another interim VP of enrollment has replaced the outgoing interim VP from North Carolina?
Is it true that for UT to stop another decline in total enrollment in Fall 2024 it will require over 3,000 new students by August? Based on the numbers above and past results is that even possible? Would you be ok with yet another total enrollment decline?
If you were a trustee, would you ask for a vote of confidence in the leadership team at the February BOT meeting?
It’s ok to feel uncomfortable in a crisis. Please pray for thoughtful, compassionate accountability and urgent actions to revitalize The Rocket Nation.
