Close to a hundred people turned out for a mid-day meeting offering an update on new student recruiting at the University of Montana today. Enrollment at the Missoula campus has dropped for the last six years, and since the fall of 2009 has declined by 18.5 percent.
This year UM rolled out all-new recruiting materials, as well as new techniques. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Perry Brown says he’s confident the changes will make a difference.
"I’m confident that some of this is going to work, because we are more data-driven, we know where our markets are, who we need to be contacting, and we can really mine those markets much deeper than we ever have before," Brown says.
University officials say competition for new students is tougher than ever at present, and note that the number of high school graduates in Montana is expected to decline for at least the next few years. They say they’ll continue to increase face to face contacts with potential students and their families, and that growing numbers of faculty are getting involved in recruiting as well.