Creighton University
Enrollment Management for Undergraduate Planning
(Don Bishop, August, 2005)
A Willed Future where Creighton achieves its goals:
Regionally Dominant and Nationally Prominent
· The Jesuit College of Choice in the Midwest for high school applicants
· Ranked and recognized among the Top 5 Master’s degree Universities in U.S.
· Increase the slim lead we currently enjoy in the freshman academic profile between Creighton and its Midwestern Jesuit peers—solidifying its reputation and placement just below Notre Dame, Northwestern, Chicago, and Washington Univ-STL—as the 5th Top Private Midwestern University with an enrollment of 3,000 or more
· Increasing the geographical diversity of Creighton by substantial enrollment gains in the Southwest, West and more enrollments from key Midwestern, Eastern, and Southern urban areas (currently about 62% NE/SD/KS/IA and overall 78% Midwestern—the goal would increase the west, southwest, east, south and mountain states from 22% to 33% and the NE/SD/KS/IA cohort would be about 45%-50%
· Continued growth is students of color in the freshman class to reach 21% by 2008 and 45% or higher males
· Ranked and recognized as one of the nation’s Top 10 Catholic Universities (out of 220)
· Achieve an academic profile of the freshman class that would place Creighton among the Top 100 in the nation among all colleges (Creighton is currently in the Top 135-150)
· Achieve an undergraduate enrollment of more than 3,850 full-time traditional undergraduates and over 4,000 including University College and the Nursing ACC and Leap Programs
o Freshmen classes of 1,000
o Transfer classes of 110 to 120 in the Fall and 40-50 in the Spring
o Retain over 92% of the freshmen and graduate between 77% and 80%
· Achieving the minimum discount rate of tuition and fees relative to our quality and diversity goals and circumstances (higher employee tuition benefits and lower state grants in Nebraska)
Barriers to Success/Threats &
Opportunities for Growth
Threats:
The demographics in our sector of the Midwest require us to expand our recruitment efforts. Overall the national demographics, while favorable for the next four or five years, will also experience a decline in the number of traditional majority (white) students from households that have been inclined to consider more expensive private education.
The rising costs of college which over the past 15-20 years have elevated private college costs by about $8,000 to $12,000 higher than what the price would have been if we had maintained the pace of increases with household incomes of college bound freshmen. Private and Public colleges continue to plan increases at two to three times household income growth. In addition, as the number of higher income families become a smaller part of the demographics in the next decade we will face a more price sensitive base of college bound students.
The sluggish stock market has for the past four years yielded little growth in assets for households. In the 1990’s some families absorbed college price increases because of big gains in their investments. This is no longer occurring. Upper middle income families are becoming more price sensitive.
Many colleges are planning significant growth and to accomplish higher market share plan on discounting their price more aggressively. We have already seen this impact relative to our overlap with Rockhurst, Regis, Saint Thomas (MN), St. Benedict/St. John’s(MN) to name a few.
We also know that Saint Louis University plans to continue their substantial growth trends from under 1000 to1500 freshmen in the past six years to1800 within the next three years.
Nearly all colleges are now employing a sophisticated analytical financial aid/merit leveraging model to determine their ideal discounts to targeted segments of their admit pools to achieve full enrollment and optimum net revenue returns. Creighton has not yet funded such consulting assistance.
Creighton’s applicant pool, although reaching record numbers in the past two years, is only about 5% higher than past years. Many schools have achieved application increases of more than 20% over the past few years—reducing their risk of not achieving enrollment goals and also giving some cushion to reduce or not increase their discount rates. Creighton must increase its applicant pool from the 3,400 range to 4,000 in the next several years.
Creighton admit rate at 86% is too high. Although our academic profile of freshmen is as high as schools who admit between 55% and 70%, we still need to reduce our admit rate. The admit rate is a nationally accepted statistic used by rating guide books as well as high school counselors, parents, and applicants to superficially judge the quality of a college’s selectivity. Creighton needs to reduce it’s admit rate to between 55% and 65% to demonstrate the quality of freshmen it already enrolls.
Creighton needs to define its quality of faculty (and their research), the benefits of their teaching instruction and growth of student skills in and outside of the classroom. We also need to document our alumni successes in professional, income, and Leadership/Service activities.
Currently, this information is not available in any substantial or convincing manner. While Creighton does a good job of identifying its personal attributes and benefits to students as a Catholic, Faith Living Jesuit Institution it can also continue to improve this message. The bottom line is that we must show the public our values and value added education and personal experience to justify the larger investment we are asking them to make in Creighton over public school options as well as our peer privates who will offer somewhat more in discounts then we plan.
Beyond our reputation for developing students for the health professions and law school the other programs lack a high quality identity that would cause students to specifically look at Creighton. We need to document the quality in these programs and also consider investing in a targeted fashion to selectively strengthen some of these programs.
Creighton’s endowment is lower than the schools we are currently competing with and in some cases “beating” for students but if we are to make ground on these schools as well as others we must continue to increase in a dramatic fashion both the endowment as well as the campus facilities and look/feel. Creighton does not yet look like a national college—it appears more local but the recent increase in buildings and residential options on campus are exciting down payments on a new campus feel and look. It must continue to grow dramatically over the next few years to attract more students from farther away who are willing to pay more for their education. We need to look like we deserve their investment.
The national image of Nebraska is unfavorable (not diverse, not sophisticated, dull, bad weather, not in an attractive part of the country) and the current impression of Omaha is neutral at best. Omaha’s dramatic growth in the past ten years and the North Downtown Development has and will continue to change the reality but more efforts with the city are needed to enhance Omaha’s national and regional image. The good news is that the changes have and are occurring.
The current discount rate at Creighton is higher than peer schools for the following reasons:
· The state of Nebraska offers less state grant funds for needy students. On the average per capita this requires Creighton to fund about 2-5% more in its overall discount rate to replace funds that other colleges get from their home state.
· Our employees make greater use of the full tuition benefit—this adds about 2-3% more in our discount rate than our peers.
· Our 2004 freshmen family income distribution is lower than our peer group. In the UCLA-CIRP study our 11 benchmark private peer cohort had a median family income of $114,000 compared to our median of $88,000. All private schools in the other cohort provided in the same report had a median income of $104,000. Creighton has more diversity in socio-economics, race, and first-generation college students. The price we pay for our more diverse nature which we stipulate is part of the quality equation is that our students demonstrate more need for funds. Our discount rate is about 5% to 8% higher than our peer groups because of this diversity.
Opportunities:
Creighton’s recent growth in developing its campus academic and social/residential facilities and the increase in enrollment and the quality of the freshmen classes has provided the University with a lot of positive momentum that has been recognized by the public.
Omaha is flowering and becoming a more impressive and attractive city for students who come and visit. It is a clean and safe city and the location of the campus next to the corporate downtown and restaurants, hotels, and shops is very positive. Families consider us to have a safer and more attractive campus than many of our peers.
Our smaller size gives the public confidence that we are personal and that our sense of community is stronger than all of their other choices. Our size when we reach 3,800 or more traditional undergraduates will also be viewed as large enough in combination with our professional and graduate programs to provide a sophisticated education that will enable our students to reach the next level in their goals for careers.
Our professional schools are a big attraction and our enrolling class is uniquely attracted to consider continuing their goals after undergraduate study at Creighton.
Creighton’s freshman academic profile (H.S. ranks in the Top 10% and ACT/SAT medians) places it among the Top 5 Private Universities in the Midwest with over 3,000 undergraduates and in the Top 10 Catholic Schools in America. We have a very slim lead on Marquette and Saint Louis University in the quality profile and if we could elevate the profile to a 27 ACT from the current 26 and class rank in the Top 10% from 40% to about 50% this would clearly widen the gap and establish us as having the top profile for any Midwestern Jesuit University.
Creighton has accomplished more diversity than any schools in our region. Continued growth in this area will make Creighton more attractive because all students now seek greater diversity. It will also be necessary to become more diverse given the demographics of the future.
Creighton’s current win ratios are very favorable. The region considers Creighton to be the top school. Now we need to expand that reputation to the West and Southwest as well as targeted areas of the South, East, and larger Midwestern cities and gain more market share.
Creighton’s quality of professionals schools if they can upgrade their rankings will continue to improve the quality message of the entire University.
IDEAL Profile:
4,000 to 4,500 applicants
60-65% admit rate and yield rate of 35%-40%
50% in Top 10% of High School class
ACT Median of 27-28
SAT Median of 1250 to 1300
21% to 25% students of color
92% freshman retention and a graduation rate of 80% or higher (including students who leave early due to acceptance into professional schools)
33% from the West, Southwest, East and South
80 to 100 more freshmen from urban areas of the Midwest—Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City,
St. Louis, Milwaukee, Detroit,
Indianapolis, Cincinnati
Note: New demographic information is included in the next few pages
Creighton University2005 Win Ratios and Overlap DATA for the Admitted Freshmen
Note: / 738 of 980 enrolled responses included= 75.3%
1278 of 1966 non-enrolling surveyed responded=65%
Note: / only U.S. admits were surveyed
Normalized / Normalized / 2005 Win
COLLEGE / Wins / Losses / Total Overlap / Ratio
1 / UNL / 162 / 138 / 300 / 54%
2 / UNO / 127 / 91 / 218 / 58%
3 / Saint Louis University / 124 / 82 / 205 / 60%
4 / Marquette / 94 / 82 / 176 / 54%
5 / Iowa / 69 / 62 / 131 / 53%
6 / Drake / 65 / 55 / 120 / 54%
7 / Loyola Chicago / 77 / 40 / 117 / 66%
8 / Kansas / 61 / 37 / 98 / 62%
9 / Saint Thomas / 52 / 38 / 90 / 57%
10 / Notre Dame / 11 / 66 / 77 / 14%
11 / Rockhurst / 32 / 45 / 76 / 42%
12 / Iowa State / 35 / 28 / 62 / 55%
13 / Colorado / 39 / 18 / 57 / 68%
14 / Gonzaga / 27 / 29 / 56 / 48%
15 / Wisconsin / 19 / 34 / 52 / 35%
15 / Colorado State / 29 / 23 / 52 / 56%
17 / Minnesota / 24 / 26 / 50 / 48%
18 / Truman State / 23 / 26 / 49 / 46%
19 / Santa Clara / 19 / 25 / 43 / 43%
20 / Kansas State / 27 / 15 / 42 / 63%
20 / Xavier / 29 / 12 / 42 / 70%
22 / Missouri / 11 / 31 / 41 / 26%
23 / Regis / 17 / 18 / 36 / 48%
24 / Denver / 17 / 17 / 34 / 50%
25 / Dayton / 16 / 15 / 31 / 52%
25 / UNK / 17 / 14 / 31 / 55%
25 / College of Saint Benedict's / 9 / 22 / 31 / 30%
28 / Saint John's / 13 / 17 / 30 / 44%
28 / TCU / 15 / 15 / 30 / 50%
28 / Hawaii / 27 / 3 / 30 / 90%
31 / Butler / 4 / 25 / 29 / 14%
32 / Nebraska Wesleyan / 17 / 11 / 28 / 62%
33 / Arizona / 15 / 12 / 27 / 54%
34 / South Dakota State / 17 / 6 / 23 / 74%
34 / Northern Iowa / 11 / 12 / 23 / 46%
36 / Loyola Marymount / 13 / 8 / 21 / 62%
37 / Depaul University / 7 / 14 / 20 / 32%
37 / Saint Olaf / 7 / 14 / 20 / 32%
37 / Wayne State / 8 / 12 / 20 / 39%
Normalized / Normalized / 2005 Win
COLLEGE / Wins / Losses / Total Overlap / Ratio