State of the College
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I believe that Ithaca College is well positioned to meet whatever challenges lie ahead, and that we will undoubtedly remain one of the leading comprehensive colleges on the higher education scene. That is not to say that there is only smooth sailing ahead or that the past few years have been easy for us. Enrollment is of course the lifeblood of any institution, but particularly for modestly endowed, tuition-dependent colleges like Ithaca. Our enrollment declined from its historical highs six years ago, and at approximately 5,800 undergraduates today is about 10 percent lower than in 1991, when we had 6,400 students. However, with a net enrollment increase of 26 percent since 1976, our enrollment has otherwise grown steadily. A growing proportion of the national college-age population comprises minorities, and we remain committed to creating access for students of color and others who enhance the richness and diversity of our campus community. With minorities making up about 7 percent of our enrollment, we have plenty of room for growth. It is a special challenge to attract larger numbers of students of color to a predominantly white, nonmetropolitan campus. We do have a number of programs designed to recruit and retain minorities, and efforts to enhance diversity are a high institutional priority. Growth in demand as measured by applications for admission has been steady over the years, and there has been a net increase of 60 percent in applications over the past two decades. That includes a sharp two-year drop of nearly 25 percent in 1989 and 1990, when applications fell from a record high of 9,000. Demand is uneven across academic programs, and in fact the declines we saw in applications and enrollment were concentrated almost entirely in the School of Business and in our large Exploratory Program in the School of Humanities and Sciences. These reductions followed national trends away from undergraduate business programs and, to a lesser extent, away from the liberal arts. Demand for other programs at Ithaca, including communications, the health sciences, and music, remained strong, and applications still continue to increase. However, enrollment capacity in these areas is limited, so we have a situation of excess demand in some areas and excess supply in others. It is in the area of financial policy with respect to enrollment planning that we at Ithaca and indeed all of higher education face perhaps our greatest challenges. The cost of tuition and the availability of financial aid have always been important variables in college-choice decisions, but for a large and growing number of families, net cost has become an overriding factor. Not only has the price of higher education risen well above the rate of inflation, but the average tuition, room, and board of private institutions have increased from 23 percent of median family income in the United States in 1979 to over 41 percent in 1993. Student aid has openly come to be as much a tool for leveraging enrollments as it is a means to create access to higher education for needy students. At 36 percent for the 1996 entering class, our freshman discount rate is right at the median in a study of 300 colleges and universities. More than a third of the institutions in this sample have discount rates above 40 percent, and a few are as high as 70 percent. During my first year at Ithaca, 1975-76, institutionally funded student aid totaled $1.3 million. By 1986 it had grown to $5.4 million, then shot up to $28 million by 1996. In 1976 this expense amounted to 6 percent of total revenues; in 1996 it was 22 percent. As our expenditures for student aid have increased dramatically, the portion of total student financial assistance that is being met by state and federal programs has declined. In 1976 the maximum combined value of federal Pell grants and New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) grants met 85 percent of our tuition. This year they meet only 39 percent. Twenty years ago 80 percent of federal student aid was given in grants and 20 percent in loans. Today exactly the opposite is true. A survey by the College Board of 1996-97 tuition rates at four-year public and private institutions shows that 91 percent of full-time undergraduates are currently enrolled at institutions that are less expensive than Ithaca. We are positioned very favorably against our top private competitors in terms of cost, but we are still near the top of a much broader continuum of institutions that offers many lower-cost alternatives. Having painted a picture that may not seem rosy, let me conclude by reiterating my opening point that Ithaca College is well positioned to meet the challenges of a complex new environment for higher education. We are not a wealthy school, but our financial strength has grown considerably over the years. Our endowment and other financial reserves stood at $150 million as of the end of 1996, up from $9 million when I first came to Ithaca. We enjoy growing support from our 30,000 alumni and many other friends, and the past few years in particular have seen especially generous major gifts that have propelled fund-raising results to record levels. Our academic programs are strong, and we must continue to mount attractive new options as we have done recently in growth fields such as occupational therapy and gerontology. |
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