Two documents displayed at the Mar. 28 Faculty Senate meeting are helping shed a different light on Butler University’s tuition increase for the next academic year.

The documents provide a list of 25 schools Butler most often competes with for potential students, or the most common cross-applicant schools.

One compares tuition and monetary costs of attending those universities versus those for attending Butler while the other looks at how many students Butler wins from and loses to those 25 schools during the application process.

Bruce Arick, vice president for finance, presented the documents at the meeting.

Arick said this information is compiled to help assess how Butler officials should adjust tuition each school year.

Looking at the books

According to one document, each Butler student is paying $33,138 in tuition and fees for the 2012-13 school year. When that figure is compared to the tuition statistics from Butler’s 25 most common cross-application schools, Butler’s tuition ranks ninth highest.

“We feel pretty comfortable there,” Arick said. “We’re not trying to proactively move up or move down (the list).

“If we were to move down, would that be a bad thing? No, not necessarily.”

Of the 10 schools Butler has the most cross-applications with, only three—DePauw University, University of Dayton and Marquette University—have higher tuition than Buter this academic year.

Dayton’s and Marquette’s 2012-13 tuitions, however, are within just a few hundred dollars of Butler’s—and it has been that way for several years.

Arick said this statistic is merely a coincidence.

“We don’t work with those two schools to plan (tuition increases),” Arick said. “We don’t know what they’re going to with their tuition increases until they actually announce them.”

But Arick also said Butler officials use cross-application information to better understand which schools they’re competing against for students and how Butler compares to those universities price-wise.

“We overlay (the documents) to say, ‘Okay, we kind of know who our top 25 are and how we’re competing. How are we price-wise with these schools, from the sticker price?’” Arick said. “Between the two (documents) is really a pretty good approach for us to consider what we should do tuition-wise for the upcoming year to compete with the schools we compete for students with.”

Tuition based on class size

Arick said another major factor under consideration each year is if Butler is meeting its target class. He described not meeting a target class as “a big red flag for schools and their pricing strategy.”

Butler’s target for this year was 1,000, which was surpassed by 111 students. Since Butler has been hitting its target freshman classes consistently in recent years, officials have been able to raise tuition.

That may not be the case at other schools, Arick said.

“Interestingly enough, if you look at some of the schools that have announced very low price increases or zero (increase)—and I would not put Purdue in that category—it would not surprise me if you found they’re not hitting their enrollment targets,” Arick said. “It’s a significant variable, especially at private schools.”

Many of Butler’s top 25 cross-application schools have steadily raised tuition year after year since the 2007-08 school year. In fact, of Butler’s top 10 cross-application schools, only Miami University of Ohio has had any sort of tuition freeze in that timeframe.

Butler’s main competitors in that top 10 have been Indiana University and Purdue University.

Competing against the freeze

Indiana has maintained the top spot in number of cross-applications with Butler since 2004. Purdue has held the second spot on that list since 2004.

Butler and Indiana shared 1,387 applicants in 2012. Of that number, 19 percent ended up enrolling at Butler, 28 percent at Indiana and 53 percent at a third school.

Butler wins over a few more students when it comes to competing with Purdue, gaining 21 percent of the cross-applicants between the schools.

One reason some students, specifically in-state ones, choose Indiana or Purdue over Butler is lower tuition.

“If you were to look purely at cost, especially if you look only at the sticker price, there’s no comparison,” said Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management. “What we try to do is make sure we talk about more than just cost and the value that comes out of a Butler education.”

Weede said Butler’s ability to offer students more financial aid is one way in which it attracts some cross-applicants. He said the school is putting $54 million toward financial aid for the 2013-14 school year.

More for the money

For out-of-state students, Arick said Indiana’s and Purdue’s tuition prices are far more comparable to Butler’s.

For example, in the 2009-10 academic year, Indiana’s in-state tuition was $8,613. However, out-of-state tuition was set at $26,160, a figure that didn’t leave such a wide gap in tuition between Indiana and Butler.

“We love going head to head with Purdue and IU on out-of-state students,” Arick said. “The price point is not as big of a variable for those students.”

Weede said Butler’s admissions office works hard to help potential students and their parents look beyond the hit their pocketbooks could take if they choose Butler.

Weede said he thinks Butler’s on-campus environment is something that draws many students who also apply to schools like Indiana or Purdue.

“One of the things I think is great about Butler is people like being here,” Weede said. “The classes are smaller, and the relationships with faculty members are more personal.”

State of the economy

Arick and Weede said Butler officials have to contend with the economy when considering tuition increases.

Arick said he believes the days of Butler raising tuition by more than 4 percent from year to year are limited.

“We can’t ignore general economic conditions that our students and families are subject to,” Arick said. “It’s a balance we have to maintain.”

Weede said he always remembers a discussion he had with a guidance counselor while working in Carroll College’s admissions office when thinking about tuition increases.

“He had a daughter enrolled in the school, and he said this with love: ‘I think you people sit around and say it’s only 4 percent. For me, it’s $1,000,’” Weede said. “I’ve tried to never lose sight of that.”

Students continue to register and plan for classes this week as they deal with capacity issues and time conflicts.

“I think registering for classes is as stressful as finals week,” sophomore Andrea Baker said.

Baker said she experienced stress planning for science classes that are applicable to her pharmacy major.

“My concern was getting into the organic chemistry class that I wanted,” Baker said. “They originally start out with less spots in o-chem classes than there are people who need to take the classes.”

Baker said there’s an allotted number of spots for each professor. Then, once those spots all fill, the

caps are raised on the class size.

Eventually all students are placed in a class, but it may not be with their desired professor.

Baker said she was adamant about getting a good professor with a teaching style that she was familiar with, given that organic chemistry is a huge aspect of her major.

“It all worked out for me this time,” Baker said.   “I sat with my computer on my lap for almost three hours, just watching the numbers of each professor slowly decrease.  That way, the moment it hit zero I could be accepted.”

Freshman Meghan Farrell said she experienced similar stress when she originally couldn’t get into a biology and society class that she needed to fulfill her natural world credit.

Farrell said the class had spots open until the moment she had to enroll.  It was the only one that could fit into her schedule.

“The next day, they ended up opening two more spots in the class,” Farrell said.  “I got in because I looked at the right time, but it was very stressful.”

Kathryn Morris, interim provost and vice president for academic affairs, said course offerings are planned through department chairs and program directors.

She said deans and associate deans inspect class schedules, and the associate provost oversees the core curriculum to ensure core offerings meet student needs.

“We work very hard each semester to ensure that students have the opportunity to take the courses they need in order to graduate on time,” Morris said in an email.  “We carefully monitor enrollments as the enrollment period proceeds.”

Morris said this allows faculty to understand which students may have trouble getting into courses  they need.

Morris said the decisions to add extra seats to a class or to add an entire class section are made by the deans, the associate provost or Morris herself.

Student advisers can also provide students with permission numbers to get into classes that close if they are vital to their particular schedules.

Cynthia Payne, an exploratory adviser, said when she meets with advisees, she helps them come up with two or three alternative class choices just in case.

These classes, she said, might help students explore major or minor options or fulfill core requirements.

“The great thing about Butler is that we are a smaller institution, which is coupled with an individualized approach,” Payne said.  “I think many departments are willing to help students out whenever they can.”

Payne said she always reminds students that there is never a bad time to take an elective class.

“I realize and understand that students are concerned about having their courses count for specific requirements,” Payne said.   “But more often than not, depending on the major, there is flexibility in what a student is required to complete in order to graduate.”

Payne also said elective courses could help a student explore different viewpoints or simply be taken because of students’ personal interests.

“We can come up with a full schedule that allows students to progress toward degree completion and benefit from their classes,” Payne said.

Still, Farrell said stress could be reduced if there were more allotted seats in each class to begin with.

“Opening a few more seats in each class and moving sections of a class at different times would reduce stress because a lot of classes are all at the same time, and you can’t be in two places at once,” she said.

Baker said she was unsure of an easy solution to the stress caused by planning for classes.

“The problem is, I don’t know what we could do to make it easier for us to register because most of us love the small classes,” Baker said.

Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management, said the institution is trying to consider all   things that growth implies.

“As we study the concept of growth, the one thing I have heard repeatedly is that we don’t want to lose Butler’s special nature,” Weede said in an email.  “We may see growth in the size of the entering freshman class but not necessarily in individual classes.”

Morris said attentive advising and careful attention to the registration process results in fewer situations where students are unable to get into a course that is vital to the timeliness of graduation.

“As our student body has grown and continues to grow,” Moore said. “We will continue to exercise this degree of attention to ensure that student needs are met,” Morris said.

Butler University’s goal of diversity is appreciated by students but is not as recognizable on campus as the administration thinks it should be.

The Taste of Diversity dinner was held last week and encouraged students to “dive into Butler’s diversity.”

The gathering featured a variety of international foods, including Indian, Thai, Moroccan, Mexican, Dominican and Cuban.

Butler has not had a Moroccan, Dominican or Cuban student in at least the last decade, according to enrollment statistics from the Office of Diversity.

Based on last year’s enrollment, the combination of Indian, Thai and Mexican students made up 0.004 percent of the total student body.

Butler’s top three most-represented countries, outside of the United States, are India, England and Canada.

In fact, the total percentage of minorities enrolled at Butler is less than 10 percent and has not surpassed that in the past 10 years.

“I feel bad saying that I don’t notice much diversity,” freshman Kelsey Malcom said, “but walking around campus, it is obvious that it’s not as prevalent at Butler.”

Students involved in organizations at Butler try to promote the idea of diversity throughout campus.

“Butler does have great resources for diversity, and what I try to do with those resources is increase programs and create an environment where we, as a student body, value diversity,” said UnoBlessed Coons, vice president of diversity for the Student Government Association.

Freshman Brandon Shannon said he thinks the incorporation of diversity should be a collaborative effort.

“Becoming a more-diverse campus is not totally on the admissions office, but also on the students to embrace the idea,” Shannon said.

Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management, said that recent reductions in scholarship funds have made it harder to provide to students from diverse backgrounds, but that has not stopped the passion for it.

The state of Indiana cut its minortiy scholarship funds from $11,000 to $7,000, so some families can simply no longer afford Butler.

However, administrators are still searching for new ways to cut costs so they can help families in tough financial situations.

“We want a multicultural student body because it adds to everyone’s education,” Weede said. “It allows students to have a fulfilling conversation with individuals from all different backgrounds.”

Both the student leaders and the administration say the push toward diversity will continue to be their focus. But statistics show that the task ahead is a difficult one.

“I expect more and have been working with the staff,” Weede said. “It is like what Yoda said: ‘Don’t try. Do.’ And that’s where we need to be more successful.”

Blue III isn’t the only thing that’s grown this year. The incoming freshman class of 2016 consists of 1,111 students, a significant increase from the 926 who enrolled last fall.
Application numbers at many colleges around the country have dropped; however, Butler has seen a 43 percent increase in applications over the past two years.
“Some of that is that students are applying to more colleges than they did even two years ago,” Dean of Admission Scott Ham said. “However, we cannot take away from the fact that the promotion Butler received during two national championship runs helped make Butler a household name.”
Prospective students became attracted to what the university describes as the “Butler Way” once Butler became a more familiar  school, he said.
“This is just another demonstration of how Butler has quickly become very prominent on the national and international scene,” Vice President for Student Affairs Levester Johnson said. “When you bring in the next largest class ever, that’s saying that Butler’s a hot commodity, and we want to continue to feed off of that.”
The quantity of the incoming class is not the only feature that should be in focus, said Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management.
“This is not just the largest group that has enrolled,” Weede said. “It is tied with last year for being the best academic class that we’ve ever enrolled.
It has more diversity in it, and people from different places bring different parts of a conversation, and that enriches everybody.”
The incoming freshman class possesses a variety of students, including Lilly Scholars, volunteers, athletes and musicians.
“All of these things together will make it a richer, fuller Butler,” Weede said. “It’s just a great group of students coming in.”
Freshman Kelsey Malcom said she likes the size of her incoming class because it’s more open and has more opportunities for people. However, she said she doesn’t want Butler to outgrow its identity.
“I would kind of like to see them keep the number (of incoming freshmen) the same, only because if it gets too big, some may feel like it’s losing its unique quality,” Malcom said. “You don’t want it to lose anything special it might have had by the size it was known for.”
Alex Correa, a freshman pharmacy major, was also drawn to Butler for its size, as well as its pharmacy program.
“I’d like to see a bigger name, not just a bigger class size,” Correa said.
In response to the largest class size, the university has pulled together additional resources to make this week and year run more smoothly.
Some aspects of Welcome Week had to be adjusted in order to meet the needs of all incoming students.
More student orientation guides were on staff to keep the group sizes manageable, and additional Butler faculty and student volunteers helped on move-in day.
“I think everything has gone smoothly,” said Kelsa Reynolds, Student Government Association vice president of operations. “It’s really neat to see not only the faculty and staff working but everyone coming together to welcome the largest class here on Butler’s campus.”
“We’ve added more support and resources for what we have traditionally done,” Johnson said. “Everyone is pitching in, and they are determined to not let anyone slip through the cracks.”
To deal with more long-term solutions, the New Student Success Task Force met again this year to discuss potential directions for the future. Comprised of Butler staff and faculty, the committee makes proposed solutions to help Butler and its growth. They have been working to ensure that every student’s needs are met, dealing with challenges such as housing, classes and campus activities.
“If we understand what those challenges are, then we can actually find ways to meet the challenges,” Johnson said.
Weede said Butler’s hope is to see moderate growth over time that’s well planned to ensure that students have the Butler experience.
The university wanted to have a larger class than last year but wanted  incremental growth, Ham said.
“We don’t want to lose what makes Butler special,” Ham said. “We want to make sure that any growth we have is fully supported at all levels—physical structures, faculty and staff, and support across the board.”

As course schedules are filling for next semester, financial aid is always something on the minds of students this time of year.

With tuition and room and board increases, most students want as much financial aid as possible.

For 2011-12, 28 percent of Butler University’s expense budget was dedicated to financial aid, totaling $47,672,800. The total amount of financial aid distributed was $102,928,535, which includes Butler funds, guaranteed student loans, state and federal aid such as the Pell Grant, and other outside awards.

“We are the largest source of aid for students that enroll here, by a significant amount,” Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management, said. “Unlike a state institution, our revenues come from our students, so we are able to distribute it as we need.”

Eighty-seven percent of Butler University’s revenue comes from tuition and room and board—all student-paid fees.

Vice President for Finance Bruce Arick said that financial aid comes from two separate “buckets” of funding: university expense, or unrestricted aid, and endowed funds.

He said a financial aid package starts with state and federal aid and then adds endowed and unrestricted aid to fill it up based on the student’s merit- and need-based circumstances.

“They’re dipping into both of the buckets to come up with the best financial scholarship awards that they can for each individual student,” Arick said. “The packages end up being almost customized to the student.”

Of all students at Butler, Weede said about 91 percent receive some sort of financial aid.

“We didn’t set out to have it that way, but when you work in a system that is tailored to each individual family’s circumstances and each individual student’s circumstances, each package is very much tailored to the individual that is enrolling,” he said.

While Arick estimated the average student aid package to be between $10,000 and $12,000, Weede said he doesn’t think about it like that.

“We have 4,000 individual financial aid packages,” he said. “When you talk about an average package, it’s meaningless because no one is average. We custom-build a financial aid package based on (a student’s) circumstances.”

Weede said he often hears from students at this time of year who have been offered more money from another school but want to come to Butler if the university can match the aid.

“Our answer is typically, ‘Good luck at that school,’” Weede said, “because we’re trying to create a match rather than buying people.”

Butler University has increased both its number of applications received and the number of admittances extended for the class of 2016.

Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management, said that Butler has admitted about 6,300 students for next semester.

“That was right around our goal for what we were hoping to admit,” he said.

Weede said that that number could rise even higher because of late applicants, late sports recruits or specialty performers in the Jordan College of Fine Arts.

Weede said that the ideal size of the class of 2016 is about 1,000 students, just a bit above the size of the current freshman class.

Dropping from 6,000 admitted students to 1,000 enrolled students may seem difficult, but Dean of Admission Scott Ham said the office of admission made a concerted effort to admit a high number like this.

“Nationally trending, students are applying to more institutions,” Ham said. “Because students are applying to more schools, we have to make more offers of admission.”

This is a 9 percent increase in the number of offers from last year.

Ham said that ease of applying to college is one reason for this.

“The Common Application makes it so easy to apply to 10 or 15 schools simply by clicking a link,” he said.

In addition, the office saw an increase in the total number of applications it received. More than 9,500 students applied to Butler. This is a 3 percent increase from last year, building on the 41 percent increase in 2010.

Success of the Butler men’s basketball team is still a major reason for the increase.

“I think the basketball tournaments the last couple years have introduced the university to people who didn’t know about it before,” Weede said. “But the nice thing is people don’t enroll at a college because it has a good basketball team. They enroll because it has the right size, fit, location, majors.”

Lade Akande, an admission counselor, said that basketball success is only the first step.

“They (high school students) got on the web and realized that Butler is a small, liberal arts school, the class sizes are small, there are not teaching assistants,” Akande said. “They found out all these great things, and that’s what drew them to Butler even more.”

Akande, who works with high school students from not only the Midwest but also the Southeast and Puerto Rico, said that the championship appearances have also increased the number of out-of-state applications.

Ham said that a final factor in the growth of applications is word-of-mouth, starting with students.

“They go home and talk about what a great experience they had,” Ham said. “The best promotion that Butler University can have is a satisfied student.”

BY THE NUMBERS

9,658 students have applied this year—a 3 percent increase from 2011.

About 6,300 have been admitted so far—an increase of 9 percent.

The goal size for the class of 2016 is about 1,000 students.

The retention rates at Butler University have been consistent over the years, but the university is looking to bring them closer to 100 percent.

Right now, Butler’s average retention from first to second year is 88 percent.

“If you don’t retain students there, they won’t be there for their junior year,” Associate Provost Mary Macmanus Ramsbottom said.

Ramsbottom said the university is losing people in the middle, so academic student affairs, admissions and student affairs are looking more closely at the year in between to find out why these students are leaving.

Student affairs and academic student affairs are now reaching out to first-generation college students who may not have the same sense of communication with their parents about values toward college.

They have planned events throughout the school year to get these students involved at the university and to create connections with faculty and other students that will help make the students feel comfortable.

Ramsbottom said if a connection is made with these students, they are more likely to end up staying all four to six years at the university.

Tom Weede, vice president for enrollment management, pointed out a few reasons why students would leave: wanting to be closer to family, a boyfriend or girlfriend; financial aid; or to seek certain programs or majors.

“People failing out is not a huge issue,” he said. “People here have the potential to be successful.”

The Learning Resource Center and student affairs meet with students who leave and have them take a survey about why they leave.

This helps the university study why students choose to depart and what the school can do to keep more students at Butler.

“If there is a solvable problem, we try to do that,” said Weede.

From what the surveys have shown, academics are not usually an issue.

Ramsbottom said the school studies what helps students adapt to the environment of the school and what helps students stay here longer.

A sense of belonging, a connection with faculty and other students, and one-on-one advising are a few factors that help students become comfortable at Butler.

However, some students don’t make these connections or get that sense of belonging, so they decide to leave the university.  There are a few impacts that this has on the university.

“It actually costs less to keep a student than it does finding a student to replace them,” said Weede. “The university loses money and people lose friends when a student leaves.”

When students do leave, living arrangements change in the residence halls.

Jeff Tyner, Residence Life Coordinator for Residential College, said that the remaining roommate is the key concern because they have to go through the whole process of learning about a new roommate again.

The RAs keep an eye on the incoming students to make sure they settle in and become comfortable in their new living environment.

On average, about 15 to 25 students come in and leave ResCo between semesters.

While that number could be lower, Ramsbottom said the current rates show students are fairly satisfied.

“The retention rates are good, so that is a good indicator of [student] satisfaction and finding the right fit,” she said.

Because of a surge in applicant numbers this year, the admissions department adjusted the admission process to take on this significant increase, and hopes to welcome a class of 960-1,000 students in the fall.

Given the surprisingly large class of 2014, many were concerned with what to expect for next year.

However, students can rest assured that the admissions department worked to accommodate a considerable increase both in interest, and in applicants.

“Our number of applicants went up 41 percent from last year,” Vice President of Enrollment Management Tom Weede said.

Scott Ham, dean of admission, said the increase in interest was a “tricky adjustment.”

“We knew that the number of visitors to campus was up from last spring and summer, and we would likely have a strong increase in the number of applications, but whether that would be 10 percent or 30 percent, we had no idea,” he said.

Because so many more applications came in, the admissions department hired former staff members to help go through the applications. All admission counselors took on additional file review responsibilities, and the operations and communications teams worked to make sure all decisions were entered, processed and mailed by the published deadlines.

“The dedication of the admission staff is simply remarkable,” Ham said.

Despite the larger number of applications to read, the assessment remained personal and three different people viewed each application, Weede said.

Due to the increase in applications, many students that may have been accepted in the past were rejected, and the acceptance rate is now at about 52 to 55 percent.

While the academic numbers of the incoming freshman class may be slightly higher than previous classes, Weede said numbers were not the only factor playing a role in the admissions decisions.

Last year, despite the fact that the university admitted about the same number of students as previous years, the yield rate, or the number of students accepted to the university who decided to attend, increased by two percent.

Weede said that increase is very uncharacteristic for a university because over the last 10 years, this number has been going down because many students started applying to more colleges.

Given Butler’s recent publicity, applicant numbers will not suddenly rise again because deadlines have passed, but Weede says it is always a possibility that the yield rate could increase, as it did last year.

The numbers of the incoming class will remain unknown until the beginning of May, when students’ acceptance of admission decisions are due.