Student Enrollment Systems

This research bulletin is designed to help senior college and university administrators better understand the complexities of both financial aid and information technology support for efficient and effective management of the financial aid resource. Using the financial aid technology pyramid as a framework, the bulletin illustrates how to use the pyramid in enrollment management, financial aid, and IT planning and implementation.

Hear firsthand how the University of Mississippi is streamlining admissions and enrollment management from a leader in the enterprise application software market, SAP. SAP for Higher Education & Research provides universities with a comprehensive set of solutions to support the entire student life cycle from prospect to alumni. With multichannel prospecting, recruitment and enrollment management, streamlined admissions, flexible academic structure and scheduling, student administration, and Web-based self-service, SAP software drives value university-wide.

Enhanced enrollment, reflected in both quality and quantity of students, is a strategic initiative for Washington State University. While our focus on recruitment of new students was paying off with increased numbers of freshmen, the number of incoming transfer students was not keeping pace. Our President urged us to do whatever was necessary to attract transfer students for the following semester. Two top questions that potential transfer students always ask are: "How will my classes transfer?" and "How long will it take to finish my degree program?" We were told that some competing institutions in our state attempted to provide that information 30 minutes after the student came to their office with transcript in hand. Could we leverage technology to do better?

The self-service environment of the 21st century has created a new set of challenges in managing course enrollment and over enrollment. Instructors and department heads have always had a great deal of control over who is enrolled in a particular class. At University of Connecticut, however, the initial electronic enrollment program made it easy to "go around" the many checks that were in place. With the manual system, when students filled out forms and gathered signatures, many people were involved in the enrollment trail. Electronic registration had allowed instructors to override any or all of the academic requisites. The School of Business found instructors had bypassed a requisite, which required students to lease a particular notebook computer to enroll in a class, and wanted to close such gaps.