A New Vision For Selective College Admissions

USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice in partnership with the Education Conservancy Announces:

“The Case for Change in College Admissions: A Call for Individual and Collective Leadership”

Each January, the center holds a conference that is an in depth exploration of a salient topic in enrollment management. This past January, we designed “The Case for Change in College Admissions” in partnership with the Education Conservancy.

The result was a compelling demonstration of the thinking that can take place when institutional affiliation is temporarily suspended and a dedicated group is permitted to think freely about the values that they attach to their work. With the generous support of the Spencer Foundation, we were able to capture that thinking in a written report. The full report is now available on our website.

Here are a few highlights:

A. As institutions act alone and compete for resources and prestige, broader societal goals, such as how well higher education is serving the educational needs of the nation, can be obfuscated. The evidence that this is the case in college admissions includes:

1. A hypercompetitive college admissions market among elite institutions.
2. Misplaced institutional priorities and resources in order to compete for position in the rankings.
3. Metrics of prestige (test scores, application numbers, admission rates) that have little to do with educational quality and that measure inputs rather than outputs.
4. Escalating college costs that are due in part to the cost of recruiting, including merit (no need) aid and the recruitment of students many times beyond the number needed to choose an educationally sound class.
5. Across the system, enormous sums of merit aid, over $3 billion, provided to students who do not need it. This sum would more than cover the entire unmet financial need of students across the country.
6. Substantial evidence that the system results in the “under-matching” of low-income students to institutions at which they would succeed at higher rates. The result exacerbates disparities in college attendance and success according to social class.

B. Selective colleges can cooperate to infuse greater societal benefit and educational value into the admission process. Actions for change include:

1. Increase the size of the incoming class to make more room for well-qualified students from untraditional and disadvantaged backgrounds. An additional 100 students per institutions would make a material difference.
2. Collectively reduce the expenditure of merit aid, say by 10% as a beginning, and shift this aid to reduce the financial burden of low- and middle-income families.
3. Stop recruiting students who have no chance of being admitted.
4. Form admission consortia that would guarantee admission to at least one school in the consortium to students who meet certain qualification thresholds.
5. Collaborate to standardize admission practices, policies, due dates, and financial aid award letters.

C. There is little incentive for institutions to commit to these solutions on their own. It will take collective will and leadership to move forward.

We hope that you will read the report and contact us with your thoughts for next steps and ways to better serve the educational needs of the nation and to bring greater educational value to college admissions.

Jerry Lucido, USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice

Lloyd Thacker, The Education Conservancy