Budgets for recruitment and admissions stayed the same or rose for most four-year institutions this year

As the above table shows, most four-year colleges and universities this year are operating with the same or increased budgets for recruitment and admissions as a year ago, according to Noel-Levitz’s recently released 2011 Cost of Recruiting an Undergraduate Student Report.

Specifically, 59 percent of four-year private institutions and 49 percent of four-year public institutions reported keeping their budgets for recruitment and admissions the same from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012. In addition, 27 to 29 percent of these four-year institutions—almost the same proportion for privates institutions as public institutions—reported increasing their budgets, while the remaining institutions reported budget decreases, with a much smaller proportion of private institutions reporting decreases than public institutions (12 percent vs. 25 percent).

Budgets examined in the study included all expenses associated with recruiting and admissions except for financial aid grants and scholarships.  Typically, the largest budget category is staff salaries and benefits.  For a complete list of the costs included, please see page 2 of the report.

How do the above findings compare with previous years?  In this report, only one other year is examined—2009-2010 vs. 2010-2011—showing similar percentages of respondents from four-year public and private institutions kept their budgets the same or increased them.  However, there was considerable change in which respondents reported keeping their budgets the same, as only 41 percent of four-year private institution respondents and 39 percent of four-year public institution respondents reported keeping their budgets at the same level, give or take 2 percent, from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 and from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012. This indicates a significant degree of turbulence, which is not surprising in today’s economic environment amid the many pressures it has brought to campuses.

If you have questions about our 2011 Cost of Recruiting an Undergraduate Student Report, or if you’d like to discuss how to better evaluate your institution’s budget for recruitment and admissions, please e-mail or call us at 1-800-876-1117. For comparative benchmarks on financial aid spending at four-year private institutions, watch for our forthcoming 2012 Discounting Report to be released by mid-March.