At the Crossroads of Access and Financial Stability: The Push and Pull on the Enrollment Manager

Enrollment management organizational practices are changing the behavior of the contemporary university. In-depth inter-views with the individuals leading enrollment efforts at selected public universities identify the enrollment manager as a professional charged with achieving diverse objectives. Enrollment managers operate in political environments balancing their educational philosophies with the financial needs of their universities. Only recently have public universities realized what private universities have known for years: Their financial stability, reputation, and perceived quality are advanced and maintained predominantly by the type and quality of students they enroll and, ultimately, graduate. Student enrollment can affect many factors, including the quality of faculty, quality of research, performance of athletic teams, financial resources, and quality of students as determined by admission, retention, and graduation information (Huddleston 2000). As funds available for public education decrease each year, the enrollment of students at public universities becomes both a difficult and a critical task, as at private universities (Day 1997). Enrollment is critical not only for financial stability, but also for the maintenance and ultimate enhancement of the institutions academic social identity and rank. In seeking to attract desirable students (as determined by academic ability, diversity, and ability to pay), universities have created the administrative and organizational phenomenon of enrollment management (Hossler 1990). Enrollment management is a maturing structure in the administration of colleges and universities that developed in the mid 1970s (Rentz 1996). Best practices, though not formally articulated, indicate that one of the main goals of enrollment management structures and practices is to develop a unique identity for the individual institution through student enrollment and marketing (Hossler 1990). Enrollment management organizations begin to resemble traditional corporations if one looks at higher education as a product. Products are intensely marketed to potential customers based on whom the corporation believes the product is appropriate for and who can afford the product. It is through marketing that the product is portrayed as better than a competitors' product, the ultimate goal being to get more and the right people to purchase the product. Enrollment management promotes similar practices through increased marketing to prospective students who will help the institution meet its short- and long-term goals. Institutional distinction through marketing leads to optimal enrollment. Theories of organizational development, however, suggest that organizations are more alike than different (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). This study contributes to the developing literature on enrollment management by looking at how individual enrollment management organizations interact within the changing higher education landscape. One way to understand how an organization interacts is to understand its leader. Thus, this study focuses on the leaders of enrollment management as a means of understanding the field. The lens of the chief enrollment management officer (cemo) provides unique insight into the strategic direction a university will take. Given that the universities in this study are leading research extensive and research intensive universities (as defined by external rankings) (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 2005), it is not unreasonable to assume that other institutions will adopt their practices and follow the strategic direction these leading national universities have set (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). The universities in this study are located in states anticipating an 11 percent or greater growth in the high school graduate population (wiche 2003). The methodology promotes a critical look at the factors that influence enrollment strategy. Institutional theory, as advanced by DiMaggio and Powell (1983), asserts that changes within an individual organization ultimately will result in changes among all organizations within the organizational field. …