UW is down 100 students this semester compared to last fall. That's despite an expensive recruitment campaign last year that got more young people to apply.
Now recruiters are looking at how to get prospective students through what they call "the funnel" — from applying, to being admitted, to actually enrolling.
UW’s enrollment chief Kyle Moore told the university's Board of Trustees Thursday they'd look at other schools with more successful funnels.
"We very much support the idea of not trying to reinvent the wheel, but look at where the wheel is working really well, and then copying from good colleagues across the country," he said.
For UW, this could mean getting prospective students more information sooner and using faculty for more directed recruitment efforts. Recruiters hope to offset falling or steady on-campus enrollment with expanded online offerings — and by recruiting more part-time and nontraditional students.
Moore said some areas have been hit harder than others.
For example, even as the university raised tuition costs for out-of-state students, those enrollments stayed relatively stable — except for out-of-state students from northern Colorado, a demographic that's decreasing.
"What they say is: 'We would love to come to UW, but that out-of-state tuition is a challenge for us,'" Moore said.
Recruiters will return to the trustees at a future meeting with a plan to target northern Colorado students with financial incentives. The trustees will have to approve any such tuition reduction before it can be implemented.
