OCT 10, 2024 | NEWS | By Seth Jahraus
Colorado College failed to meet its enrollment targets for the Class of 2028, coming up roughly 40 students and $3.3 million short of what they hoped for, according to the college’s financial office and common data sets.
The college welcomed about 480 new students to campus this year, falling out of its typical target class size of 525 to 540 students. The last time CC’s first-year enrollment fell below 500 was in 2011 with 484 students.
“Nothing in our history, nothing in the data, nothing in the way would have indicated that that was going to happen,” said Tony Cabasco, CC’s new vice president for enrollment.
The exact reason for CC’s low enrollment is hard to pin down. Between FAFSA malfunctions and Supreme Court decisions, 2024 was a tumultuous year for college admissions. Private, selective colleges were particularly affected.
Applications to public universities increased by 10% from 2023 to 2024 compared to a 5% increase in private applications. Highly selective colleges (with an acceptance rate under 25%) only saw a 3% rise in applicants compared to a 10% rise in applicants for less selective institutions (with an acceptance rate over 75%).
Cabasco said smaller liberal arts colleges such as CC were particularly affected by under enrollment this year according to his conversations with similar institutions. Reed College, for example, took on a class of 303 new students this year, 50 students smaller than their current sophomore class and around 90 students smaller than their current junior class.
CC admitted around 1,600 students this year, the largest pool of admitted students out of any of the current classes. Out of those students, 30% enrolled, the lowest yield rate the college has seen over the past four years.
“We did everything that we thought would get us to 530 [students],” said Karen Kristof, dean of admissions. “In fact, if you had asked us even into the middle of April, we would have said, ‘Oh, we might be over-enrolling.’”
The lost $3.3 million of revenue from first-year tuition should have little to no effect on everyday campus life this year, according to Lori Seager, CC’s chief financial officer. The previous three cohorts exceeded their budget targets, allowing the college to have a smaller class without making major budget changes. Additionally, CC has a built-in “contingency budget” which it can draw from during unexpected revenue losses.
Seager emphasized the importance of considering the entire student body when analyzing class sizes and targets. The current senior class has a population of roughly 620 students which Seager said evens out the most recent enrollment cycle.
In addition to being the smallest class, this year’s first-years have the lowest percentage of full-paying students out of the other three cohorts. About 48% of first-year students are full-paying, compared to around 54% of sophomores, 60% of juniors and 62% of seniors. However, the admissions office, while not need-blind, does not intend to curtail a certain demographic of wealthier students.
“We would not want to be in a position to say, ‘We need 70% who don’t qualify for need-based financial aid,’” Kristof said. “We’d love to make more offers of admission and get a higher percentage of students to say yes.”
The largest percentage of students who didn’t say yes to CC seemed to be wealthy, early action applicants who didn’t apply for financial aid.
“Most of the losses were in that one bucket,” said Cabasco.
Early action admitted applicants had a yield rate of 19.8% in 2023 and a 14.6% yield rate in 2024. Of those early action applicants, students who didn’t apply for aid had a yield rate of 13.4% in 2023 and 6.9% in 2024.
The CC price tag has steadily increased to where full-paying students could spend upwards of $86,000 per year to attend.
While CC’s previous class sizes and contingency budget provide a support system against this year’s small first-year population, problems could arise if the college has another low enrollment year when the large senior class graduates.
The admissions department is setting their target for around 550 new students next year to make up the deficit. However, a lot is still left up to chance given the year and surrounding circumstances. But “hope is not a strategy” according to Cabasco.
He believes the admissions department can do more to persuade price-sensitive families that the price tag of CC is worth it.