Ohio University officials want more out-of-state-students, and next year's budget shows an increase in funds to recruit in other states.
The budget for the upcoming school year set aside $250,000 for recruiting out-of-state students. The money can be used to hire more recruiting staff, develop alumni chapters and increase mailings to prospective students, said Provost Stephen Kopp.
We know we don't have enough people in the field
Kopp said. Additional staff would visit high schools and focus on under-represented regions of the country.
Kopp said recruiting students from outside Ohio is part of an effort to increase diversity, including geographically. The additional revenue from the higher tuition rate is beneficial, but bringing different perspectives to campus through diversity is a higher priority.
The university receives state funding for Ohio students. Out-of-state students pay the difference of that state funding in tuition.
Out of 1,563 non-Ohio residents that were admitted for next year, only 308 chose OU. As of April 8, 3,353 freshmen will attend OU for the 2004-2005 school year.
Freshman telecommunications major Michael Rosenfeld said diversity is needed at OU. I would love to see more people from out-of-state here. Rosenfeld is from Manalapan, New Jersey, about 50 miles from New York City. He said he came to OU for its communications programs and discovered it through college rankings and publications, not through recruitment.
Rosenfeld considered about a dozen colleges, including Syracuse, Penn State, Maryland and Emerson University in Boston. He said tuition is less than at a private school, and attending OU no different than going to another public school outside New Jersey. The mentality here is that OU is for Ohioans, and he said some fellow students asked why he would bother coming to OU from so far away.
The Enrollment Management Committee, co-chaired by Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education David Descutner, is studying diversity and out-of-state enrollment. Descutner said by the end of spring the committee will make recommendations and set goals for enrollment, focusing on non-residents and under-represented groups.
It's important for undergraduates to meet other students from out of their zone he said. It's geographic it's class and sometimes it's worldview.
The enrollment committee is still in the preliminary planning phase and has not determined any specific goals or figures. Descutner said that any changes in enrollment would probably take two years to be noticeable.
Before any changes are made, Kopp said the committee will research which regions export college students. He also suggested linking athletic recruiting to increasing geographic diversity because many athletes come from other states.
Among cities listed as possible targets were Chicago, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., Descutner said. He said other Ohio colleges do well recruiting from these areas.
Meghan Plantz, a freshman from Granger, Indiana, first discovered OU when she came to watch her older brother dive in a competition at the Aquatic Center. No one from my high school has heard of OU
she said. Among other colleges she considered were Indiana University and the University of New Haven in Connecticut.
Plantz, who receives an academic scholarship, is a walk-on player for the lacrosse team. She said if it were not for lacrosse she probably would not have met many students from outside Ohio. She said that the increases in tuition are ridiculous especially being a non-resident.
Despite the increased recruitment plans, the Board of Trustees is phasing out the Trustee's Scholarship, which allowed non-residents to pay in-state tuition. Kopp said the purpose of the award was to attract non-residents, but it has been ineffective. The $400,000 set aside each year for the scholarship will be put back in the university budget and used for purposes related to out-of-state recruitment.
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