By Taylor Nigrelli
Opinion Editor
St. Bonaventure University has released its enrollment figures for the 2014-15 school year, revealing further decline in that department.
There are 1,784 full-time undergraduate students and 383 graduate students. That’s down 2.9 percent from last year’s 1,837, 9.3 percent from five years ago when the student population was 1,967 and 19.6 percent from 10 years ago, when the school’s enrollment reached 2,218.
Even without the exact statistics, it’s clear St. Bonaventure is nowhere near its capacity for holding students.
Once-full parking lots feature plenty of open spaces even during the busiest hours of the day. Both the fourth floor of Doyle Hall and the first floor of Loughlen Hall are completely empty. The third and fourth floors of Francis Hall have been closed to student occupation for over a year now. The third floor of Plassmann will be closed, effective next semester.
St. Bonaventure is not alone in this decline. According to an Aug. 25 Buffalo News article, Canisius College and some other local private schools are facing some enrollment struggles.
St. Bonaventure interim Associate Vice President of Enrollment Kathryn Baugher believes the idea of paying for private college scares off potential students and parents.
“All the Western New York schools are experiencing this kind of thing,” Baugher said. “People hear about the tough economic times and see the rising college costs and they think ‘oh my god, how can we afford it.’ People think they won’t be able to afford a private school so they won’t even look at them. St. Bonaventure is not unique in that.”
One way the school is looking to quell that concern is by marketing the school’s value. US News & World Report listed St. Bonaventure as one of its top-five value schools in the Northern United States, this year at number three. According to the school’s website, the average cost to attend St. Bonaventure for the 2014-15 freshman class is $18,577 – a 58 percent discount in tuition.
Baugher and the admissions team plan to make prospective students more aware of this number.
“(The US News & World Report) couldn’t have been more timely,” Baugher said. “It gives us something to put out on a billboard and publicize that opens that conversation. Local media will pick that up, do interviews with us and then that gives us an opportunity to use that cost figure.”
Baugher believes there are major external and internal factors playing into the school’s enrollment decline. The external factors, such as economic issues and a smaller pool of high school graduates to choose from, are out of her control. In her limited time at St. Bonaventure, she plans to reform the internal factors that have played into the enrollment decline.
“We’re looking at the internal forces and saying ‘what are we doing well, and what are we not doing well.’ Even if we’re doing something well, we need to improve because of the external forces that are working against us,” Baugher said. “That’s what we focus on – the things we need to improve”
In an attempt to improve the success rates of campus visits, the school has hired a consultant to address the issue. Justin Bayer, who specializes in campus visits, will work with the admissions department to improve the experience for visiting prospective students.
Additionally, the administration is considering the appeal of the school’s mix of academic programs.
“Do we have the right academic programs that students are looking for? For example, we don’t have nursing,” Baugher said. “So we can’t attract nursing students no matter how many there are. We have to ask ourselves if our mix of programs is attractive to students.”
With Baugher’s interim status, she sees the 2014-15 school year as the perfect opportunity to experiment and get to the roots of the school’s recruiting issues. She hosts a weekly “deep dive” forum in the University Club Wednesday mornings to do just that.
“When you have new eyes, it’s easy for me to look at everything there is,” Baugher said. “Like, how are we doing the campus visits? We bring Justin in and we look at that. How can we increase our applicant pool? How can we get more students interested? Where do we find those students? We’re using some outside services that maybe we didn’t use before.”
