Wanted: More Students

Already skirting bankruptcy, many colleges need more income from tuition and government subsidies. Schools in serious trouble therefore must attract more students, and others must at least maintain stable enrollments. Thus the mood was bearish at many admissions offices last week. Even as college acceptances were being mailed to 3,000,000 high school seniors, various surveys found that applications for next fall's freshman classes at many four-year colleges had declined.

The Association of American Colleges queried 451 of its members, most of them private institutions, and found that only one-fourth had more applicants than in 1972. Similarly, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges reported that applications to the nation's 109 major state university systems and campuses had dropped off by 4.2%--the first overall decline in ten years. There were exceptions to the trend, of course. As a group, the eight Ivy League colleges had 3.3% more applicants than last year. The number declined by 3.4% at Harvard but rose by 8% at Yale, which had actively recruited women.

Exactly how the application trend will translate into class size in September is not yet clear. "The payoff is how many register," noted A.A.C. President Frederic W. Ness. Moreover, high school seniors today may simply be more confident about getting into their first-choice colleges. In that case, there would be fewer applications to second-choice schools than there were in the fiercely competitive 1960s. Still, the U.S. Office of Education predicts that next fall's enrollments at four-year campuses will be roughly the same as this year's 9.2 million. Turned off by high college costs (an annual average of $3,280 for resident students at private four-year schools) and no longer believing that a degree will automatically increase their economic status, many students now prefer to commute to cheaper two-year community and technical colleges near their homes. Enrollments at those schools rose 5.4% last year, and are expected to go up by the same proportion next fall.

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