International and out-of-state student enrollment at Ohio University has grown since 2005, and throughout the past four years, the school has been ramping up efforts to recruit outside the state.
“We have looked to beef up some of that effort in terms of students we reach out to,” said Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management. “Global education is very important on this campus, and this includes out-of-state and international students.”
Diversifying the campus is the main goal behind the increased recruitment efforts, Cornell said.
Out-of-state students, including international ones, made up 12.6 percent of the incoming freshman class this fall, amounting to 489 students. That number has grown about 50 percent since 2005, when out-of-state students composed only 7.9 percent, or 327 students, of the incoming freshman class.
Most out-of-state students this year, about 605, came from Pennsylvania, and the second-most, about 135, came from Illinois. New York, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia also are well-represented at OU.
“The principles of recruiting in- and out-of-state students often are the same — we want to help them understand the opportunities afforded by our excellent academic programs and our beautiful, historic, residential campus,” said Candace Boeninger, assistant vice provost for enrollment management and director of Undergraduate Admissions. “We want to help them learn whether this is a best fit for them, and if so, how to get here from there, wherever ‘there’ may be.”
About 18 percent of students enrolled at OU’s Athens campus are not Ohio residents, according to the OU fact book. Students who are not Ohio residents pay higher tuition rates — $18,834 per year as opposed to $9,870 — because OU is a public university, and instructional fees for out-of-state students are not subsidized by the state.
“We’ve been able to focus on … reaching out to those students beyond normal recruiting and marketing efforts,” Cornell said.
For out-of-state recruitment, OU focuses on states bordering Ohio, such as Indiana and Pennsylvania, in addition to those along the East Coast.
Representatives from OU have gone to more events, high schools and college fairs in those states throughout the past few years, Cornell said. OU also has beefed up its advertising and started working more with the university’s alumni office.
In addition, OU develops “area-specific newsletters” for prospective students and promotes the Gateway Trustee Award, which provides a discount on the non-resident surcharge for some eligible out-of-state students, Boeninger said.
In September, OU launched an online tour for international students and others who cannot travel to visit the campus. The interactive virtual tour follows the same path of a traditional walking tour, featuring audio in different languages such as Spanish, Arabic and Chinese.
“We’re hearing really good things from out-of-state and out-of-the-country students who are really enjoying seeing the beauty of the campus online,” Cornell said.
In 2005, OU had only eight international undergraduate students in the incoming freshman class, or 0.2 percent of the class. That number has grown to 88 this year, or 2.3 percent of the incoming freshman class, Cornell said.
The university had 1,626 international students enrolled as of Fall Quarter, according to the Office of Institutional Research.
“What’s exciting for me is we’re seeing more and more countries represented,” Cornell said. “The idea of the multicultural dimension … really just adds to that fabric of what OU is all about. It gives students the opportunity to come here and meet someone from Nepal or China or Africa or Brazil.”
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