Out-of-state-schools squeeze enrollment out of La. Colleges
Texas, Arkansas border campuses offer incentives
by Melody Brumble

LSUS Chancellor Vincent Marsala believes Texas has thrown down the gauntlet when it comes to student recruitment.

 

Prominent billboards in Shreveport proclaim the University of Texas-Tyler’s incentives to attract Louisiana students. UT-Tyler is less expensive, offers more programs and receives more state funding than LSUS. And it’s not the only out-of-state school eyeing local students.

 

The recruiting blitz comes at a critical time for Louisiana colleges and universities. Enrollment statewide has dropped in the past five years. Tougher admissions standards adopted March 22 by the state Board of Regents may decrease enrollment at four-year universities even more. Competition for the remaining qualified students -- and their dollars -- is fierce.

 

Because the recruiting drives and most of the incentives are new, it’s too soon to tell how they’ll affect enrollment at Louisiana campuses, said Chris Smith, an admissions counselor at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. "I imagine it would take two or three years to see an impact."

 

A Louisiana resident receiving the maximum scholarships and incentives can attend UT-Tyler full time for about half the cost of a full load at Louisiana State University-Shreveport.

 

Or, like Toya Champion, you can head to Carthage, Texas, for a two-year nursing program that offers immediate acceptance. She attended Northwestern State University’s nursing program in Shreveport but couldn’t make the cut for the highly competitive clinical classes.

 

Champion looked around and settled on Panola College, a place where "we can go to the instructors at any time" with questions, she said. A break on out-of-state tuition made the commitment easier.

"It was time to get it on," said Champion, who is 26, single and the mother of a 3-year-old.

 

She spends as much time on the road as in class. Champion drives to hospitals throughout East Texas for hands-on experience, rising at 4 a.m. for early shifts, and visits the college campus twice a week.

Panola College President Gregory Powell wants to change the two-year institution’s status as a well-kept secret. About 4 percent of the college’s 1,424 students are from Louisiana.

 

"As I began seeing we had employees who commuted from Louisiana, I decided we needed to be more aggressive in marketing to Louisiana," Powell said.

 

Panola College and other two-year campuses in Texas can recruit in-state students only from a defined district. A district -- in Panola College’s case, four counties -- amounts to a primary market area from which a school raises taxes. Tuition, fees, local taxes and state funding based on teaching hours pay the bills at community colleges in Texas.

 

Panola College will market its incentives and programs with advertising, billboards and brochures. Powell said the recruiting effort won’t be on the scale of UT-Tyler’s in-your-face campaign in East Texas, Northwest Louisiana and Mississippi.

 

"Ford doesn’t just sell cars to one state," Jim Hutto, UT-Tyler dean of enrollment, said. "Shreveport is a very viable market to recruit students. We’re not just picking the pantry over there. We’re also recruiting in Jackson, Miss., and some parts of Arkansas. I guess where we’re perceived as a threat is that we are competing for freshmen."

 

About 15 people from Louisiana attend UT-Tyler this year. None of them receives the incentives because that’s a new program, Hutto said.

 

The university wants more students to fill new freshman and sophomore classes. UT-Tyler previously offered only junior, senior and graduate classes, drawing on transfer students from community colleges in or near Tyler.

 

Officials at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board are unaware of anything fueling the recent border marketing blitz. Since 1995, Texas colleges and universities within 100 miles of a state line have been able to offer out-of-state students a break on tuition.

 

The board plans to increase college and university enrollment, but that effort targets residents. The goal is to enroll 500,000 more Texans in colleges and universities in the next 15 years, board spokesman Ray Grasshoff said.

 

"There’s no incentive there to go raid, so to speak, other states."

Arkansas school counters Louisiana Tech admissions

Texas institutions aren’t the only ones vying for local students.

 

Starting July 1, Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Ark., will offer an out-of-state fee waiver to qualified students in seven Louisiana parishes and three Texas and four Oklahoma counties. The school has offered the same waiver to students in two of the Texas counties since the 1930s.

The requirement -- an ACT score of 22 -- is between the second and third tier of admissions guidelines most Louisiana universities will adopt in 2005.

 

Missed the Louisiana Tech requirements by a few points? No problem. Henderson, about a two-hour drive to the north, could cut you a deal.

 

At $2,420, tuition for two semesters is slightly cheaper than the $2,628 cost of three quarters at Louisiana Tech. Henderson also competes directly with Louisiana Tech by offering bachelor’s degrees in aviation.

Aggressive recruiting by Louisiana Tech was one of the reasons Henderson expanded its fee waiver program, said Henderson President Charles Dunn. Others involved changes in the Arkansas education system.

 

"We increased academic standards for admission six or seven years ago. Simultaneously, we were surrounded by a number of new community colleges created by the state," Dunn said. "That had a modest impact on our enrollment. We didn’t grow. But this year, we’re up around 2 percent. Freshman enrollment is up around 16 percent."

 

Louisiana’s most enticing student retention tool is the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students, a scholarship fund that offers virtually a free ride for qualified students who attend public colleges and universities.

 

TOPS was enough to keep Shreveporter Aaron McDonald in Northwest Louisiana despite a desire to go to school out of state.

 

Engineering, not airplanes, drew him to Louisiana Tech after he considered LSU-Baton Rouge and UT-Austin, his mother, Claire McDonald, said. "He could go to school here for almost nothing, or we could paid $5,000 or $6,000 a semester over there. I have nothing bad to say about the educational system in Louisiana."

 

But when Claire McDonald decided to seek a bachelor’s degree in nursing, she chose UT-Tyler. The registered nurse for nearly 30 years held a nursing diploma and had taken numerous courses toward a bachelor’s degree at Texas Women’s University in Denton.

 

Northwestern State nursing school officials wanted her to retake core courses. UT-Tyler was willing to work with her on a program that took into account her experience and previous classes, she said.

McDonald juggles a full-time nursing job, family, class and clinical work. She attends classes at a UT center in Longview, Texas, an easier drive than Tyler.