Syracuse as a case study of a relatively prestigious, very selective but not elite, university struggling to make its enrollment goals.
A reminder, regardless of college, this is what it means to have “interest” taken into account
“Typically, enrollment officers pay close attention to demonstrated interest to try to predict which students are likely to accept admission offers. They track whether and how quickly prospective students open recruiting emails and how long they spend reading them. Are they visiting campus, logging into the school website or visiting recruitment booths at college fairs?”
Can’t open the first. From the second, these words likely speak a lot to many schools - and the many intl posts kids make here:
In 2025, the weaknesses he had pointed out collided with President Trump’s high profile crackdown on student visas. Syracuse’s international enrollment numbers declined by half for undergraduate and graduate students.
Fox News put out an article on SU yesterday too. Both Rupert Murdoch properties I believe.
And the subject in the report notes the article. SU has too many strengths to be regional. It’s will always be on anyone’s short list in the area of communications, at a minimum. And it has other strengths as well. The bonds are AA- by S&P and Aa3 by Moodys so they do have access to funding and are considered easily able to cover their debt payments.
But yes there are examples. Hartwick comes to mind.
SU angered some the other year by offering last minute hige merit to kids after others got less earlier and were not given more.
Others - have higher prices but note everyone gets merit.
But yeah people see the sticker.
Some now are even giving the price you’ll pay b4 u apply - but it’s still sticker minus discount.
The problem schools will have is finding the sweet spot - where they can charge an amount to cover costs. Many are spending more than they are bringing in.
Per College Navigator (for SY23-24, come on feds…update the data already!), 21% of Syracuse students received no financial aid (merit or need-based). So for the 21% of full-pay families, it would behoove Syracuse to drop their price at least somewhat, perhaps to around $65k, based on the tuition costs @maijem11 shared. Syracuse is in a much more affordable part of the state than NYC, yet its tuition is higher than at NYU and Fordham and is within a couple hundred dollars of Columbia (NYC & Ivy League). Either that or if they want to keep their sticker price, then 100% of students should be receiving some type of aid in order to drop the real price to something that families think is of an appropriate value.
I think they fired most if not all of the people who did this along with 1/2 the employees at the Department of Ed. The lack of good data is an inevitable result.
