Columbia is considering expanding undergraduate enrollment in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science by up to 20 percent, according to an Oct. 31 email to faculty from the policy and planning committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences obtained by Spectator.
The University anticipates finalizing its decision before releasing early decision admissions results mid-December, according to the email. Its consideration is part of a wave of policy proposals responding to recent shifts in higher education and growing programming concerns within the University.
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Maybe itâs a way to raise revenues that are seemingly disappearing in the current environment.
More kids, potential economies of scaleâŠalthough Iâd imagine theyâd have to invest in infrastructure too.
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That would be a crazy money grab. It took Yale years and huge amounts of money/construction to increase class size by 5%.
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And Rice is doing now - I wonder how that works? Does it dilute the admission standards and inevitably brand - or the endowment - can they stay need blind?
I wonder of all these things.
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Columbia has the lowest per capita endowment of the Ivys. It has the highest ratio of federal government funding of the Ivys and the highest ratio of international students (its graduate engineering school is majority international). All things that make it exceptionally vulnerable to recent politics and changes in higher education landscape among its T20 peers. They survived so far largely through capitulation but need to change the business model in the current climate. They already have milked cash cow masters degrees so much that master students now exceed undergrad and PhD students. But many are international who are now at risk of being arbitrarily denied Visas in the future. And PhDâs students donât generate revenue. So undergads are the next logical source.
What will be interesting if the change the class size as they appear to be likely to do is what affect it has on full need blind admissions over time. It doesnât help their finances if they admit more students who require substantial aid. Thereâs probably many ways they can steer away from high need students while remaining allegedly need âblind.â
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100%.
Agreed increasing undergrads makes sense, but I expect thereâs more grad school growth possible too. And SPS students at full pay.
This decision will also appeal to the people who say the US elite institutions should be increasing undergrad populations. I look forward to the relentless marketing that will be forthcoming!
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Wake is planning to expand too. Started this yearâclass of 1550 vs about 1350-1400. Plan to be 6200 in 2029/30 (up from 5400). Fwiw, even with expansion, acceptance rate went down and % Pell and FG went up pretty significantly this year. I got the sense having more students allows them to support the big university things they want to support and grow their ability to bring in more/higher percentage of lower SES families. I guess thatâs the economy of scale point.
Rice might also have some if the goals of supporting âbig universityâ stuff. Theyâre already much better in terms of supporting lower SES families.
No idea about Columbia.
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If all these guys get bigger and thereâs less grads overall, well maybe they see the writing on the wall and want to continue to be haves and not the have nots - and others 5, 10, 15 years from now will be in trouble.
Maybe?
And Iâm not talking about the names we see that close that few ever heard ofâŠ.but could those less stable that are larger and better known be on the firing line in 10, 20 years from now?
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IMO Wake is increasing these groups because USNWR places more weight on these factors than they have in the pastâŠWakeâs USNWR rank notably fell in 2023 when the most significant USNWR methodology changes came out wrt to Pell and social mobility factors.
The primary way Wake can increase âeconomies of scaleâ/provide more financial aid is to raise money because I expect they are even âsubsidizingâ full pay students (meaning what Wake spends per undergrad is greater than gross tuition/fees.)
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So are Boards of Trustees and Chancellors sitting around and saying - wow, that website US News changed how it does thingsâŠ..so now we have to change our strategy and pivot.
Just because of them??
Sadly, you already stated the answer - thatâs ridiculous - but it shows the power of a ranking that isnât likely considering most of the clients - in the case of Wake - full pay families. They care about the rank - unlikely about the economic diversity of the kids. No doubt it is WFUâs game plan to go after full pay - or they wouldnât have had such a huge percentage to begin with.
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Expanding enrollment is a very good thing (slowly over multiple years). We all know that there are plenty of highly qualified students for these schools.
I suspect there is little difference between the last 100 accepted and the next 100 on the bubble for most of these schools. I also expect that the ânext 100â will pay significantly higher than the average student for tuition and fees. The problem is that yield will likely go down with increasing class size (which is a bad metric driving bad school behaviors).
Many state universities have been very successful at doing this (often with community college formal linkages), leading to happy people in the state. UMass, Texas A&M, UTexas, Penn State, etc., etc. Northeastern on the private side (also NYU). Curious to see if Elon will do something like this with its new acquisition.
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I canât speak to that at the macro level (or for Columbia) but I fear itâs true for some. We see some schools making press releases after they climb in USNWR (and others) for example. The only other example I have is that a former director of admission at Tulane said to a room full of counselors that their BOT really cares about USNWR rankings, and that did drive certain enrollment strategies.
To stay on topic here, I do support the elites expanding class sizes, and hope we will see some follow Columbiaâs decision. Obviously these schools could also offer many degrees fully online too. Even degrees like engineering and nursing work in the online model, as several online providers have proven over the last decade. But, I am sure the elites wouldnât do that because they fear diluting their brands.
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I think the last big expansion within the Ivies must have been when Dartmouth added about a thousand students in order to help it become fully co-ed. And in the case of Tufts in 1980s, it had very specific strategic goals in mind and the donors lined up to help it meet those goals. These things work best when they have the full support of faculty, alumni and students; there have been few such frank admissions that âweâre doing it because we need the moneyâ among the elite colleges of the east coast.
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Iâm sure Wake cares about rankings, and I also think they want a more socioeconomically diverse student body. And they need funds to provide the kind of education they value/are known for (which is high cost, and my understanding is that they are relatively more dependent on tuition revenue than some of their peers-ish institutions). And they are thinking about expanding their appeal to a broader cross section of students, a goal which would be well served from being more diverse and from being more affordable. Many things can be true at once.
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Perhaps - but the point that I interpreted from the info @Mwfan1921 provided was that Wake literally pivoted because the ranking plummeted. Perhaps my interpretation was wrong.
Vandy and WashU whined and fell and others like Tulane fell. It doesnât change who they are but it was important enough to them to take action.
Everyone may have noble goals but not the money to pull them off. Who knows if the pivot to regain rankings will hurt these schools financially - spending $ they donât have.
Itâs sort of sad and ridiculous that it took - what many might seem the most important form of validation - as the reason to do so. And itâs sort of sad that society puts so much weighting on this particular source. And itâs sad that kids pick schools on this ranking - that in many cases - has nothing to do with their interests.
So Wake may want this - but Wake wasnât/isnât doing this - until they saw their star get tarnished. It could be they couldnât afford to do it and to stay financially stable. On the other hand, maybe now it canât afford not to.
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Yale expanded from 5400 to 6200 about 6-7 years ago. Built 2 new residential colleges at the time
Yeah, the Yale expansion was interesting in that there was no immediate, articulable need for it, other than that they could get away with it with little to no impact to its yield ratio. One school of thought opined that it was a reaction to losing so much talent to NESCAC comprised solely of HYP rejects.
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And are doing it again, bring it up to 6600. But in both cases, it was over time. Now they are adding 100/year for 4 years. And as noted, in 2017, they opened 2 new residential colleges.
Columbia, which enrolled 300+ more for class of 2029 v. 2028, is looking at a similar level for 2030, with no new housing planned
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Itâs New York City. They must be relying on off campus housing? About 70% of Columbia students already live off campus.
Undergraduates? No. 90% live on-campus. Or at least did until this year.
This year they converted an upperclass dorm to a first-year residence and moved some undergrads into off-campus housing. But even Columbia-managed off-campus housing is finite - at least in Morningside Heights. So Iâm not seeing the growth plan as being well-thought out.
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