article: statistics matter.

I'm going to start posting some of the articles that I have been busy writing for class/The Pendulum/University Relations. Below is an exercise in writing about statistics.

Elon competes with flagship public colleges

ELON—The number of students from North Carolina who attend Elon University has hovered around 30 percent for the past ten years. Now, higher standards for admission are threatening to reduce the number of students coming from the Tar Heel State.

“North Carolina enrollment is very important to us,” said Greg Zaiser, dean of admissions at Elon. “Students from the state receive the North Carolina Legislative Tuition Grant. That money can be channeled into the financial aid budget, which can then be allocated across the board.”

These financial incentives encourage Elon to admit a high number of in-state students, but Zaiser explains that there is difficulty getting high school students from North Carolina to consider Elon. North Carolina’s well-established public university system boasts such academic heavyweights as North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Coming from high school, Chapel Hill was my top choice,” said Sean Flynn, a junior at Elon from Raleigh, N.C. “Carolina just has a name in this state that Elon hasn’t established yet. I was nervous to tell my friends about attending Elon since they didn’t recognize the name.”

Other North Carolina high school students are turned away from Elon because of tuition disparities that make public schools more attractive. In-state tuition for UNC-Chapel Hill costs $5,300, while Elon’s in-state tuition rate is three and half times more at $20,200.

“It’s usually the North Carolina family who makes the comment about Elon being outrageously expensive because we do have the flagship public school system,” Zaiser said. “At this point we’re really looking at the same student.”

In a survey distributed to students that Elon accepted for admission but did not enroll, one out of 11 respondents indicated enrollment at UNC-Chapel Hill instead, making the school Elon’s top competitor.

In the past, Elon’s student “market” was comprised of students who would not be competitive candidates for admission at UNC-Chapel Hill or NC State. In the past five years the standards for admission to Elon have been rising beyond expectation, placing the university in closer competition with the top public schools.

In the demanding industry of higher education new admissions standards mean a new strategy. Elon’s is simple and direct: money.

Increased presidential and fellows scholarships are aimed to put Elon on equal footing with the less-expensive public schools, said Zaiser. The university is also in the middle of a capital campaign that is focused on raising money for the endowment, which should lessen the school’s dependence on tuition increases in the future.

Money, however, can only do so much. To remain a viable option for North Carolina students, Elon will need to keep standards for admission from competing directly with NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill. Though the admissions office has no plans for intentional degradation of standards, they are monitoring the situation with caution.

“We may reach a point at which we need to stop increasing the admissions standards,” said Zaiser. “We would be foolish to leave the market we’re in. We’re not trying to be a Duke or a Davidson. We know who our students are and which students we want.”