Tactics for enrollment growth in the college

Our college leadership has been engaged in discussions on recruitment and retention trends over the past few years for all of our programs. We have used several tools in these discussions including curricular analytics; GrayData^SM, which provides information on student demand, competition, job opportunities, and other important environmental and market factors; and student performance in our programs (DFW rates). It is clear that some of our programs would benefit more by focusing on student retention than on new recruitments. A few courses are contributing to majority of our student dropouts.

Also, flow charts of some of our programs reveal bottlenecks that are making it difficult for students to navigate through their curricula. In general, professional master’s programs could use greater focus in almost all of our departments. The three broad tactics our leadership came up with are: i) reduce curricular complexity by changing course sequencing, etc., ii) strategic deployment of faculty resources and Eloy Torrez Family Learning Communities resources to improve student success in key engineering entry-level and transition courses, and iii) effective communication and marketing of professional master’s programs. Specific action plans are developed for each of these tactics. We look forward to sharing our progress in the coming semesters with all of our constituencies.