by Bob Massa and Bill Conley
The job of a chief college enrollment officer has never been more challenging and stressful than it is today. Demographic shifts, public doubts about the value of a four-year degree, increasing “sticker” prices, federal attacks on international students, and pressures from presidents and boards, remind us of the challenges we faced during a combined 60 years in that leadership role. As “retired” interested observers and still active professionally, we are intrigued by the student recruitment tactic that Iowa’s Cornell College is pursuing as described in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education story.
In a nutshell, Cornell worked with the firm College Raptor to tag about 19,000 rising high school seniors in their inquiry pool with “zip+4” data that allowed them to estimate family incomes. With the data, Cornell culled the number to 16,000 and sent them a personalized email and, soon after, a postcard with a unique QR code to all 19,000 inquiries, offering each student an estimated financial aid award should they be admitted. This occurred in June, 2025, three months before the FAFSA will be available for completion. The catch: to receive the estimated amount, they must apply to the college within a month of receiving the letter and commit by September. Basically, Cornell is saying, “If you like Cornell and you like the price, apply now, commit within a month, and the deal is yours. If not, take your chances.”
On one hand, an early estimate of financial aid eligibility is a good thing. It lets students know that a particular college is a financial possibility (or not). In Cornell’s case, sending this directly to inquiries, most of whom will not convert to applicants, helps the college capture the attention of the many prospects who, otherwise, would never get to the stage of using Cornell’s Net Price Calculator to estimate their aid eligibility. If that is as far as it went, kudos to Cornell for getting the word out about net price in a proactive way.
But the College did not stop there. Reminiscent of commercial sales pitches to “act now for this special deal,” the “Save Your Seat” program (as it is called) applies pressure on students to make a decision early, prior to knowing what offers they might receive from other colleges. As if the college selection process isn’t stressful enough for young people and their parents, Cornell has, perhaps unintentionally, added another layer of angst to a student’s college admissions journey.
While it is noble to try to simplify a complex process, in this case by using zip+4 as a proxy for income, we worry that accuracy will be sacrificed broadly, and that cautionary “read the fine print” messages will proliferate. To wit, many adjustments in awards will need to be made if federal aid is involved, since students cannot be “over-awarded” when federal money is included in an aid package. Further, as firms like College Raptor increasingly provide this service to other institutions, competition based on incomplete financial data will heat up and families will be more confused and conflicted than they are today, especially as estimates vary widely depending on which firm uses what data.
We are well aware of pressures to enroll a class that produces the net revenue required to deliver a quality education that aligns with institutional mission. That said, student recruitment tactics such as Cornell’s “Save Your Seat” program could never have been implemented by members of the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) prior to the signing of a consent decree with the Department of Justice in December, 2019. The DOJ alleged that NACAC’s code of ethics restricted competition unlawfully in three areas: prohibiting incentives for students to apply and enroll early; barring colleges from recruiting transfer students at other four-year institutions; and forbidding colleges from recruiting students after the National Candidates Reply Date of May 1. The national association considered these unethical. The vast majority of its members concurred and, we dare say, appreciated this ethical code because it enabled them to prioritize student interests while developing and administering their admissions practices.
In early 2020, many enrollment professionals were concerned that the flood gates of questionable recruitment practices would open in the coming years. That did not happen initially, due in part to COVID’s unanticipated challenges that overshadowed the newly sanctioned recruitment practices. But gradually, we have seen institutions behaving in ways that never would have occurred pre-2019. A recent example of this was reported at Syracuse University. After missing their targeted 2025 first-year class enrollment, SU took the unprecedented step of enhancing financial aid awards (in one case by $200,000 over four years) to admitted students who declined their initial offer and had committed to attend another university. Prior to the DOJ intervention, this would have been seen as highly unethical. Today, it is just one more example of the high stakes of student recruitment, where the interests of the institution win out over the impact that these practices may have upon students struggling to make sense of it all.
We commend the efforts of colleges and universities to get financial information to prospective students early and with transparency. But we also believe that applying the pressure to “act now” undermines the ability of families to consider all of their options prior to making an enrollment decision. The government can, has and will continue to interpret what is legal and what is not when it comes to higher education practices. This is especially evident under the current administration. But they can’t legislate “doing the right thing,” and while that may certainly be in the eye of the beholder, there is something that just does not seem right about Cornell College’s “Save Your Seat” tactic. Time will tell, not only for Cornell, but for those who follow a playbook that on the surface appears to “reduce friction” but ultimately sows greater confusion in the post-secondary education marketplace.
Bob Massa served as dean of enrollment at Johns Hopkins University and vice president for enrollment at Dickinson College. Bill Conley also served as dean of enrollment at Johns Hopkins and vice president for enrollment at Bucknell University. Massa retired in 2019 and Conley in 2020. They are co-founders of the consulting firm Enrollment Intelligence Now.