ENROLMENTS
This year at Acadia enrolment has
been the buzz word on everybody’s lips. In the Open Books presentation in
December,
On May 1, 2007, the Association
of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) released a report entitled
“Trends in higher Education”[1]
which focused on enrolment. They reported that between 2000 and 2006 full-time
university enrolment increased by more than 190,000, or 31 percent and
projected that from 2006 to 2016, national full-time enrolment is expected to
grow by an additional 70,000 (or nine percent) fulltime students in the low
growth scenario to 150,000 (or 18 percent) full-time students in the high
growth scenario.
The Maritime Provinces Higher Education Council (MPHEC) issued a press release on May 3, 2007 indicating that “enrolment at Maritime universities is up more than 13 per cent from 10 years ago and credentials granted has risen more than 22 per cent during the same period, according to statistics released today, May 3.”
In light of this recent information from the AUCC and the MPHEC, it seemed that it might be interesting to examine how enrolment at Acadia is faring relative to our sister institutions in Atlantic Canada.
The Association of Atlantic Universities conducts an annual Preliminary Enrolment Survey and these data are readily available.[2] I have extracted from these reports the data for all of Atlantic Canada, the Maritime Provinces and Acadia. The raw data is given in Table 1 below.
|
|
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
|
Acadia |
3441 |
3686 |
3722 |
3796 |
3943 |
3651 |
3521 |
3297 |
|
Atlantic |
60247 |
60589 |
62351 |
65435 |
69238 |
70800 |
70646 |
67508 |
|
Maritime |
48178 |
48368 |
50157 |
52904 |
56332 |
56963 |
56915 |
54183 |
Table #1 – AAU Preliminary Enrolment data versus time. The Atlantic and Maritime Totals include Acadia.
In order to examine any trends over time, we have plotted this data in Figure #1. The plotted data is all normalised to the 1999 figures in order to facilitate comparison.
Figure #1 – Normalised Preliminary Enrolment plotted since 1999. All data are normalised to the 1999 values. I.e. the 2003 Atlantic enrolment was about 1.15 times the 1999 Atlantic enrolment.
Acadia appears to have a somewhat anomalous enrolment pattern beginning in 2004. By the 2006-2007 academic year, we are lagging by 16.6%, which translates into approximately 573 students or $4.58 Million.
The following excerpt from the 2007 report to Faculty made by the Faculty Representatives to the Board of Governors illustrates the strategy that the University is employing to counter this trend.
Tied to enrolment concerns is a recommended restructuring of Acadia’s tuition and fees and the move to student-owned computers by September of 2008. This restructuring initiative follows from recommendations made in the Acadia Advantage Renewal Report. Fees for 2007-2008 will be as follows:
Canadian International
Tuition 6,652 12,939
Technology fee 568 568
Athletic and Health
Services fee 247 247
Computer fee 595 595
________________________________________________
Total 8,062 14,349
The computer fee is part of the calculation only for the 2007-2008 academic year and will disappear when students arrive with their own computers in 2008. While students at that point will have their own platforms, they will be informed that their computers must meet certain specifications.
Obviously, a big part of the strategy is one of optics. While many other institutions have tuition and fees similar to Acadia’s, it was felt that the all-inclusive price was having a negative impact on recruitment. The Enrolment Task Force under the leadership of Paula Cook Mackinnon will be presenting a report to the Board at its May meeting. The purpose of the Task Force was to establish guidelines for full-time undergraduate enrolment for the next five years. The Board is now becoming actively engaged in discussions of the difference between recruitment goals and realistic short-term scenarios.
It would appear that the University feels that our fee structure plays a significant role in our inability to recruit students. Presumably this conclusion would not be unique to Acadia and would be reflected in enrolment patterns at the other institutions in our area. Specifically, one would expect that high tuition would be a predictor for drops in enrolment.
In order to examine this hypothesis, 2006-2007 tuition data was also obtained from the AAU website.[3] The data is in Table 2 where we also give the percentage change in preliminary enrolment from 2005 to 2006.
Table 2 – Tuition and Enrolment Data
|
Institute |
Tuition ($) |
% enrolment change 2005 to 2006 |
|
NS Agricultural |
5500 |
4.6 |
|
NSCAD |
5500 |
3.1 |
|
Mount St Vincent |
5550 |
2.2 |
|
St FX |
6205 |
1.2 |
|
Ste Anne |
5660 |
0.7 |
|
AST |
5210 |
0 |
|
Dalhousie |
6030 |
-0.5 |
|
UPEI |
4920 |
-0.5 |
|
Mount A |
6405 |
-0.8 |
|
Kings |
6030 |
-2 |
|
U de M |
4735 |
-2.8 |
|
Memorial |
5100 |
-3 |
|
UNB |
5246 |
-5 |
|
Acadia |
8062 |
-6.4 |
|
Saint Mary's |
5580 |
-6.9 |
|
St Thomas |
4355 |
-7.8 |
|
Cape Breton |
5660 |
-8.9 |
The data from Table 2 is plotted in Figure 2
Figure 2 – Change in Enrolment from 2005 to 2006 versus 2006-2007 tuition. There is no statistically significant correlation between change in enrolment and tuition. The vertical line indicates the average tuition amount.
It is clear that the hypothesis that high tuition levels would be a predictor of drops in enrolment is not supported by this analysis.
At the May meeting of Faculty, the President reported that it was likely, based on current enrolment numbers, that the 2007-2008 enrolment would be in the neighbourhood of 2900 students. This will be a total drop in enrolment, relative to 2003, of 1000 students or approximately 25%, at a cost in lost revenue, relative to 2003, of roughly $8 000 000.
Peter Williams