Let’s help rebuild enrollment
Dec. 8 — One of the biggest challenges for Hampshire’s new president is increasing enrollment. Hampshire reduced admissions staffing, and enrollment is back down to approximately the 2019 level, the year it declined an incoming class. Hampshire has the power to turn things around by rebuilding staffing, developing a cutting-edge strategy, and leveraging community talent.
Hampshire had increased enrollment by 68% from Fall 2022 (500) to Fall 2024 (833) but now is back down to 750, roughly the same level as Fall 2019. In 2024, Hampshire made cuts to close its budget deficit, including ⅓ of admissions staff.
I asked Hampshire’s spokesperson why they made these cuts, given the possibility that they could affect enrollment. They indicated that it was in response to lower enrollment revenue and that the changes they made, combined with external factors, further affected enrollment. Click here to read their statement in full.
Was this outcome predictable? Out of 54 higher ed institutions responding to a survey by Niche.com in the article Spring 2022 Higher Ed Pacing Towards Undergrad Enrollment – Niche Instant Insights, “Only 12% of those with fewer staff reported an increase in deposits compared to 45% of those with similar staffing and 57% of those who increased admission staffing.” Put another way, 88% of the institutions that reduced staff didn’t increase enrollment. Hampshire’s strategic recovery plan forecasts enrollment growth, and deviations from that require further budget cuts.
I wrote to Angel B. Pérez, PhD, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, who told me that, “In my experience, as a former Dean of Admission—the more counselors I had on the road, working with families, reading applications, and cultivating relationships with high school counselors and students—the more my applications and enrollment pipeline grew.”
Dr. Pérez is also the author of The Hottest Seat on Campus, which provides wisdom for handling the pressures on admissions deans. A number of exceptional deans were featured in the book, including Hampshire’s former Dean of Admissions, Fumio Sugihara, who was quoted as saying that at Hampshire, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.” (February 13, 2024). This was prior to the budget cuts and restructuring.
As Pérez wrote in his book, “Without the admission office, there are no students. Without students, there is no revenue. Without revenue, there is no college.” Going forward, Hampshire should rebuild staffing levels, hire an experienced permanent dean, have that dean return to being a direct report to the president, and protect those positions.
I interviewed Teege Mettille, author of The Admissions Counselor Malaise. Counselors’ jobs have changed over the last twenty years, with an increased focus on data, which can hurt morale since counselors are more people-oriented. Staffing cuts can exacerbate pressure on staff, leaving them with a larger number of prospects per remaining counselor and further increasing the need for strategies and technologies that help them stay focused on what moves the needle. “The drive needs to be towards more, not less direct individual engagement with students. Someone at the institution has to find a reasonably good way to identify which students on any given day to be interacting with…to look for those little signals.”
Students who are excited about Hampshire’s model and community may want to help enrollment thrive in various ways, such as by volunteering. One way is to approach the admissions staff to offer to table at your former high school, or to speak to the guidance counselors there who advise students on colleges. The admissions office should support student volunteers with table materials and some suggested talking points.
Eventually, Hampshire might want to see whether there are aspects of Deep Springs College’s admissions process to emulate, as described in Diamond in the Rough: A Century of Education and Democracy at Deep Springs College: students conduct interviews, read applications, and have prospective students spend a few days on campus. According to an interview with former Dean of Admissions Julie Richardson by Jessica Doanes 10F in Inside (vol. 5, issue 2) Hampshire used to have overnight stays for prospective multicultural students and had a hometown high program, so those programs could be revitalized. Phil Stone, who was president of Sweet Briar College after its brief closure, demonstrated an attitude around enrollment that Hampshire should emulate when he, “instructed admissions officers to bring every prospective student to him, whether he is in his office, in a meeting or somewhere else on campus. He wants to say hello and encourage prospects to enroll,” according to Gary Robertson in “Redefining college ties”, an article in Virginia Business.
I wrote in To Succeed, Hampshire Must Get a Lot Weirder, that Hampshire needs a community-wide effort, and to improve marketing, it needs to show, not tell: be bold and straightforward. Hampshire has a short time to restore its enrollment trajectory and, simultaneously, add other revenue streams.
REVIEWED BY: Blaise Paine, Jesse Fair, Alexis Espinoza
