June 13, 2024

Faculty and Staff,

Last week in my enrollment message, I shared some thoughts about how we can improve UAF’s retention and graduation rates. This week I want to talk about recruitment. To inform that conversation, though, there are two important questions for us to consider. First, what is our target enrollment? That is, what number of students ensures that UAF is a vibrant and financially stable institution long into the future? And second, what is the right mix of students to achieve our educational mission in a fiscally sustainable way? That is, what is the mix between technical training, undergraduate, and graduate students, between the research campus (Troth Yeddha’), the rural campuses, and CTC, or in-state vs. out-of-state students? We are an open enrollment university and we warmly welcome every prospective student! But we don’t have unlimited recruiting resources, so where can we best invest our recruiting dollars to help the right balance of students to achieve their educational goals, achieve a return on the state’s investment, and maintain UAF’s long-term vitality and financial stability?

In a Friday Focus from spring 2023, I wrote about some of the considerations that go into identifying a target enrollment number - “optimal enrollment”. Since weathering recent challenges (budget fluctuations, COVID-19, etc.), UAF is seeing positive enrollment numbers and this enrollment growth is good for our university. But setting an intentional enrollment goal is even better. If we can identify a number, say 10,000 (but maybe more or maybe less), then we can focus on the things we must do to recruit and retain those students, give them a modern student experience, and support a positive work environment for our faculty and staff. This sort of deliberative thinking is a path towards financial sustainability and allows us to focus on reducing our reliance on state funding.

So what balance of students do we need to get in the pipeline now to reach an optimal goal in the coming years? We don’t know exactly what the optimal number is yet, but we know we need to act now to grow and maintain enrollment numbers. In order to achieve enrollment growth-then-stability, it seems like a focused two-pronged approach of in-state and out-of-state recruitment – both for CTC and Troth Yeddha’ – is needed.

Building the in-state half of this approach requires us to invest in recruiting more Alaskans to attend UAF. Serving Alaskans will always be a priority for UAF, and it is our goal that every Alaskan student sees UAF as a first choice for their education. Toward this end, we are currently engaging young Alaskans who will become future Nanooks. The dual-enrollment North Star Middle College and the online dual-enrollment Alaska Advantage program are two ways that we are building this pipeline. The North Star Middle College currently has over 200 local students and Alaska Advantage is serving over 1,000 students from across Alaska. These are students who graduate high school already on the path to a UAF degree. Other programs, such as Teaching through Technology, Upward Bound, Ed Rising, Rural Alaska Honors Institute, Science Olympiad, Geoforce, and others are doing their part as well. Recruiting high school students into these programs is money well invested.

Another recruiting tool is our use of free massively open online courses (MOOCs), on the edX platform (also known as AlaskaX.) This program has now served more than 100,000 learners across the globe. These students are taking UAF short courses/programs in areas where we specialize – GIS technology, energy, drones, and climate change to name a few. They can take the course or program for free or receive a certification (a microcredential) for a fee. Microcredentials help learners clearly communicate the work-based skills they have built along their educational journeys. We now have a platform to recruit these students and show what UAF has to offer.

Beyond AlaskaX, we have an opportunity at UAF, particularly at CTC, to greatly expand our offerings and grow enrollment using microcredentials. While we have occupational endorsements (compressed credentials with 9 to 29 credits) in some areas, we could greatly expand the use of microcredentials across our CTC curriculum without adding new academic departments or increasing pressure on faculty. That’s because in many respects, microcredentials are just stops along the way in programs we already offer - codified by a “certificate of value.” That way, if a microcredential en route to a certificate or associate's degree were just the right amount of training for the job they sought, they could go right to work with a microcredential in hand!

For the Troth Yeddha’ campus, we are seeking those students whose goal is an advanced degree from an R2 (soon to be R1) university! We want every single student in Alaska who is prepared for and desires this path to come to UAF’s Troth Yeddha’ campus. But the demographic changes in Alaska tell us we’ll need a broader approach in order to sustain enrollment. So, while it remains our mission to provide education to Alaskans, we are currently looking outside and will look more to reach our enrollment targets. Fortunately, we have a lot to offer to non-resident students who want to come to UAF for a unique educational experience.

Recruiting non-resident students can be more expensive than in-state students. We have a couple of admissions counselors in the Lower-48, and an international recruiter on retainer, but in order to really be competitive in the “outside” market, we need to invest more resources. So where will the money come from to recruit more students from a competitive national/international market? Well for one, non-resident students typically pay non-resident tuition, which is a higher rate than for Alaskans. At the same time, students from outside Alaska looking for the experience that UAF provides also tend to need less financial aid. So, while it is generally more expensive to recruit out-of-state students (including international students), this is a financially prudent approach. Furthermore, most students settle near where they went to college and Alaska needs more people in its workforce. We are that path!

Attracting out-of-state students to UAF requires a different approach than our in-state strategy. On average, students who move to Alaska for college typically want to live on campus and have a more traditional college experience. This means we also need to invest in modern residence halls with enough space for all students who request housing. We need a Main Street that people are excited to visit, athletics teams that people love to cheer on, and academic programs that attract top-tier students and faculty. Our R1 initiative is part and parcel to this long-term strategy. These investments into the student experience will ensure a sustainable fiscal future.

As a university, we need to strategically use our resources to recruit and retain a sustainable mix of students on different pathways. The things we do now are going to impact what the UAF class of 2040 looks like. To this end, next week I will talk about a vision for the next step after we recruit students to UAF: the modern student experience.

Let's talk more.

—Dan White, chancellor