Back to the Present: Strategic Enrollment Planning for the Coming Demographic Change. Noel-Levitz White Paper

Does your campus' enrollment success depend on traditional-age students? Do you draw from one of the 39 states plus District of Columbia that will soon see significant changes in the numbers and make-up of direct-from-high-school students? Is your campus ready for these changes? Campus administrators are regularly reminded to keep an eye on long-range demographic projections when planning for the future; that's only prudent when making decisions about policies and facilities that may be developed over a period of several years, most would agree. Currently, institutions of higher education--most notably the large group of four-year private and public colleges and universities that rely on traditional-age students--are well-advised to drop the binoculars and take a close look at the next five-to-ten-year span. What lies directly ahead is a demographic trough more pronounced than any experienced in recent decades--and one that urges strategic enrollment planning to position institutions for stability and success. This paper looks at those trends and outlines strategies for coping with these challenges. (Contains 5 tables.)