WASHINGTON, DC (PRWEB)
JANUARY 18, 2012
John W. Dysart, president of The Dysart Group, Inc., will be making a presentation at the upcoming Presidents Conference of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities. This timely session will focus on disagreements about the definition of discount rate, the perils of comparing an institution’s discount rate to national or regional norms and the myriad of factors that influence individual college and university rates. Attendees will learn how to better educate colleagues, alums and board members about discount rates.
The amount of institutional funds a particular college or university dedicates to financial aid varies significantly dependent upon individual institutional characteristics. The rate will be determined to some extent by enrollment management decisions such as recruitment plans and financial aid packaging strategies. Data-driven admission tactics and financial aid approaches can enable colleges and universities to stabilize or reduce discount rates. But other influencers include things that cannot be easily controlled such as college location, the economy and the size of the endowment. Additional factors can be changed in order to reduce a school’s discount rate but such change may require alterations in a college or university’s core, such as mission, participation in scholarship athletics, major and program offerings and the number of students residing on campus.
Mr. Dysart asserts that it is critical for college presidents to ensure that recruitment and financial aid plans are effective and efficient, but a detailed understanding of how other factors influence the discount rate is just as vital in order to educate important constituent groups. College leaders must more effectively make the case that this metric is institution specific and that comparisons to national or regional norms, or to other colleges and universities can be dangerous since such comparisons do not account for differing institutional characteristics.
The conference is being held at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC on February 1-3, 2012. More information is available at http://www.cccu.org. The Dysart Group, Inc. is a higher education consulting firm specializing in admissions, financial aid and retention. More information about the firm is available at http://www.thedysartgroup.com.
Enrollment management consultant John W. Dysart will present at the upcoming Presidents Conference of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities on the subject of institutional discount rates and the myriad of factors that influence individual college and university rates. The conference will take place February 1-3, 2012 at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC.
