Colorado College missing enrollment targets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The west coast lacs are all struggling other the Claremont Colleges, for various reasons. Reed and Colorado are similar, in that, they have pretty quirky academic cultures, but Colorado has always been very dependent on wealthy students. In the west coast, there’s much more emphasis on going to public universities, so schools like Whitman, Colorado, and Reed really struggle.

Some of the claremont colleges are struggling too: namely scripps and pitzer. if they were smart, they'd let Pomona claim their dorm and classroom space and rebrand the whole thing as Pomona. They already get students by association but currently it still says Pitzer, Scripps, etc on the diploma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Colorado is trying to follow Carleton. But I think they should follow Grinnell. They used to give out generous merit but now they are focusing on fgli. That is a mistake.

Grinnell did under-enroll several years ago, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems notable that Forbes recently assigned Colorado Colorado a financial grade of A+.

Forbes' analysis does not include data from the past 18 months since it wasn't fully available. This article says CC's enrollment issues have been low only this year and last year. CC's Forbes grade will reflect financial issues with a year or two lag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that Williams is so tuition dependent. Guess things are easier when you are seen as the best of the best

In saying "Williams’ tuition dependency is not publicly available," the article appears to contradict itself, however.

Not a contradiction, it tells you where they got the number from in the prior sentence.

Regarding tuition dependency?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Colorado is trying to follow Carleton. But I think they should follow Grinnell. They used to give out generous merit but now they are focusing on fgli. That is a mistake.

Focusing on fgli is a mistake for any college or university.

I think when they gave out merit, the school was relatively strong. Now that they moved all the money to fgli, the strong kids lost interest in it. Test optional, full ride, just to get fgli kids in.

Giving out a bunch of merit money is a sign of institutional weakness. Also, just because someone is FGLI, it doesn’t mean they’re unqualified-that’s just classism.

I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness at all. You’re giving out money either way - need based or merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The west coast lacs are all struggling other the Claremont Colleges, for various reasons. Reed and Colorado are similar, in that, they have pretty quirky academic cultures, but Colorado has always been very dependent on wealthy students. In the west coast, there’s much more emphasis on going to public universities, so schools like Whitman, Colorado, and Reed really struggle.

Some of the claremont colleges are struggling too: namely scripps and pitzer. if they were smart, they'd let Pomona claim their dorm and classroom space and rebrand the whole thing as Pomona. They already get students by association but currently it still says Pitzer, Scripps, etc on the diploma.

Proof of either struggling. Both have more gifts coming in than ever. Scripps is currently building up a new plaza with psych and dance space and financial aid has been improving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that Williams is so tuition dependent. Guess things are easier when you are seen as the best of the best

In saying "Williams’ tuition dependency is not publicly available," the article appears to contradict itself, however.

Not a contradiction, it tells you where they got the number from in the prior sentence.

Regarding tuition dependency?

Yes. Read the article.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that Williams is so tuition dependent. Guess things are easier when you are seen as the best of the best

In saying "Williams’ tuition dependency is not publicly available," the article appears to contradict itself, however.

Not a contradiction, it tells you where they got the number from in the prior sentence.

Regarding tuition dependency?

Yes. Read the article.

I have. It doesn't mention any specific tuition dependency figure for Williams.

[Anonymous]

Coming off the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, reports are that enrollments at Sewanee and Furman are both *up* 10-15% this year over last year, with both seeing the largest incoming classes in several years.

Both are excellent LACs which cater to affluent students, but which (contra Colorado College and many northern LACs) primarily use their financial aid budgets to induce wealthier kids to attend.

Looks like the Southern Surge continues, spreading out to LACs now from state schools and Vandy/Duke/Wake etc.

I certainly think one lesson is that for all but the most selective LACs with huge endowments (e.g. Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Washington & Lee), wealthy families are simply not interested in paying ~$95k full price at lesser known schools for the privilege of funding FGLI access.

Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coming off the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, reports are that enrollments at Sewanee and Furman are both *up* 10-15% this year over last year, with both seeing the largest incoming classes in several years.

Both are excellent LACs which cater to affluent students, but which (contra Colorado College and many northern LACs) primarily use their financial aid budgets to induce wealthier kids to attend.

Looks like the Southern Surge continues, spreading out to LACs now from state schools and Vandy/Duke/Wake etc.

I certainly think one lesson is that for all but the most selective LACs with huge endowments (e.g. Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore/Washington & Lee), wealthy families are simply not interested in paying ~$95k full price at lesser known schools for the privilege of funding FGLI access.

Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Colorado college has a wealthier student body than Sewanee, so please…try again! The median income of a students family at Colorado College is in the $250,000 range. Your analysis sucks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Colorado college has a wealthier student body than Sewanee, so please…try again! The median income of a students family at Colorado College is in the $250,000 range. Your analysis sucks

You are looking at old data, CC undeniably has wealthy kids there, but their effort to redirect financial aid has driven down the median family income in the most recent Chetty data (to 155k versus 174k for Sewanee and 200k+ for W&L/Davidson/Colgate/Colby/Middlebury etc.). But you are missing the point. CC believes it is in the tier of schools that can fill its class without giving merit aid/ discounts while trying to charge $95k/year and maintaining need blind admissions. It isn't in that tier, it can't afford it, and like Kenyon, Sewanee, Bates, Furman and other 2nd-tier LACs is going to have to move to an explicitly need conscious admissions policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Colorado college has a wealthier student body than Sewanee, so please…try again! The median income of a students family at Colorado College is in the $250,000 range. Your analysis sucks

You are looking at old data, CC undeniably has wealthy kids there, but their effort to redirect financial aid has driven down the median family income in the most recent Chetty data (to 155k versus 174k for Sewanee and 200k+ for W&L/Davidson/Colgate/Colby/Middlebury etc.). But you are missing the point. CC believes it is in the tier of schools that can fill its class without giving merit aid/ discounts while trying to charge $95k/year and maintaining need blind admissions. It isn't in that tier, it can't afford it, and like Kenyon, Sewanee, Bates, Furman and other 2nd-tier LACs is going to have to move to an explicitly need conscious admissions policy.
Source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Most SLACs/LACs had better get with the merit (e.g. discounted tuition) program, or they might find the customer base quickly losing interest.

Colorado college has a wealthier student body than Sewanee, so please…try again! The median income of a students family at Colorado College is in the $250,000 range. Your analysis sucks

You are looking at old data, CC undeniably has wealthy kids there, but their effort to redirect financial aid has driven down the median family income in the most recent Chetty data (to 155k versus 174k for Sewanee and 200k+ for W&L/Davidson/Colgate/Colby/Middlebury etc.). But you are missing the point. CC believes it is in the tier of schools that can fill its class without giving merit aid/ discounts while trying to charge $95k/year and maintaining need blind admissions. It isn't in that tier, it can't afford it, and like Kenyon, Sewanee, Bates, Furman and other 2nd-tier LACs is going to have to move to an explicitly need conscious admissions policy.

The median family income of a student from Colorado College is $277,500, and 78% come from the top 20 percent. About 1.8% of students at Colorado College came from a poor family but became a rich adult.

This is $100,000 more than what you stated. Can you explain that? They’re ranked in the bottom for % of students from the bottom 20% of incomes, so how are they enticing low income students? They don’t have them.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/colorado-college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is $100,000 more than what you stated. Can you explain that? They’re ranked in the bottom for % of students from the bottom 20% of incomes, so how are they enticing low income students? They don’t have them.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/colorado-college

I'm getting newer data straight from the source (Raj Chetty's website), not the outdated NYT tool from 2017 that you and everyone else on this site always refer to. Link is here:

https://opportunityinsights.org/data/

You can download the spreadsheet "Baseline Cross-Sectional Estimates of Child and Parent Income Distributions by College" and see for yourself....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is $100,000 more than what you stated. Can you explain that? They’re ranked in the bottom for % of students from the bottom 20% of incomes, so how are they enticing low income students? They don’t have them.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/colorado-college

I'm getting newer data straight from the source (Raj Chetty's website), not the outdated NYT tool from 2017 that you and everyone else on this site always refer to. Link is here:

https://opportunityinsights.org/data/

You can download the spreadsheet "Baseline Cross-Sectional Estimates of Child and Parent Income Distributions by College" and see for yourself....

lol

You might want to check the readme to understand just how old that data is....