Kansas is a competitive market for students--and the point to emphasize here is that the first year student number at K-State has been trending in a direction/holding steady and KU, at best has leveled off, at worst, trends downward. I'd love to say that K-State is 'doing better.' But, the fact of the matter is that JCCC has increased enrollment, and Wichita State has done better in Sedgwick county (the hardest place to recruit in the state). Truth be told, K-State is doing marginally better, but KU hasn't been able to keep up with community colleges, or combat the Wichita State offers to keep students in Sedgwick county. There's a reason that KU's scholarship packages changed to mirror K-State's scholarship packages last fall (
http://www.news.ku.edu/2011/august/15/scholarships.shtml)...because what K-State does, works. Remember, that the commodity here is not really the 'educational value,' as if students were thinking about that, we'd be discussing career placement. It's the educational value mixed with the actual cost of attendance (KU has the 17th highest net cost of attendance in the Nation for public schools
http://collegecost.ed.gov/catc/). To give you a sense--suggesting that admissions standards raise your profile is great...but in real numbers...:
2008 (Orange Bowl and NC for KU): 10,902 first years students apply, 10,003 admitted, and of that number, 4,441 enroll.
2009: 10,653 first year students applied to KU for admission, 9,740 admitted, 3,897 enrolled.
2010: 10,157 first year students applied to KU for admission, 9,397 were admitted, and of that number, 3,671 enrolled.
2011: 10,035 first year students applied to KU for admission, 9,306 admitted, and 3,495 enrolled full time.
K-State, on the other hand..
2008 (Orange Bowl and NC for KU): 9,453 apply, 7,980 admitted, and 3,761 enroll.
2009: 8,413 fy applicants, 8,283 admitted, 3,466 enrolled.
2010: 8,268 fy applicants, 8,147 admitted, 3,465 enrolled.
2011: 8,292 fy applicants, 8,204 admitted, 3,644 enrolled.
We're looking at K-State consolidating and getting more people that are in their pool % wise then KU. If KU is a better value--or a heads on even value...KU probably should be getting more students, and K-State should be getting less? Their pool is less, but seem to be doing pretty well with almost 2,000 less students to draw upon. and..if we take things like National Championships and BCS bowls into consideration, we see that both school saw nearly 300 more people enroll at each institution, and K-State saw nearly 1,000 more people apply that year than normal, far less were admitted, while KU only saw around 300 more apply, and admitted marginally more than normal...so whether or not an athletic event of that status affects enrollment is...suspect.
