Skalicky: U.S. universities are in the midst of an enrollment cliff where there are smaller numbers of high school graduates. Given that, how important is it for universities to be doing more than ever before to recruit students?
Medley: It's absolutely paramount to everything that we do. And I think for too long, we focused on that brand new, first time in college group and cohort, and that's been where we've been looking. But if you begin to look at the overall numbers, transfer students are huge for us. We're also looking at a lot of adults. So, right now, there are 43 million adults in the United States who have some college, no degree. And they started, they didn't finish. And so, a lot of them are kind of stuck in their career and can't really advance. That's a huge opportunity as well. And with the demographic decline and the cliff that we've seen, because people haven't had many children since 2008 when the recession hit, that is just continuing to decline. And so, I think it is important for institutions to be nimble and to be focused on a variety of different student populations because we need an educated workforce. And as baby boomers retire, we will have tremendous job shortages. And so, we need to be able to fill those positions with an educated populace.
Skalicky: So, the message is that there are opportunities out there, but people need that education to be able to fill those positions.
Medley: Absolutely. We've seen somewhat of an erosion on the national front about the value of higher education. But I think when people begin to look at it and you look at the income potential over the course of a lifetime, it's amazing what a college degree will do for you. And we see that in the Ozarks, right? We see when somebody goes to college, they attain — we see the quality of life they have. And a bachelor's degree isn't just for the individual who earns it. It's a generational change. And I think that that's the difference that people sometimes undersell. But where I think, as institutions, we may have had some mismatches is looking at careers where then we expected people to go to the institution and then move away. And we know in our, you know, local market as well as many of our markets that people are feeling stronger connections to family, wanting to do that. And so, really looking at the type of positions and the type of education we can provide that people will be able to have that quality of life but also have it closer to people that matter to them. And so, I think that's an important shift that a lot of higher ed institutions really need to focus on.
Skalicky: And I want to get more into that here in just a moment, but I want to talk about what numbers are like this semester. What can you tell me about where the university is at as far as the number of students enrolled this fall semester?
Medley: Right. And I think it's really important. We talked about the different student populations. So, right now, we're basically about even for our, you know, total headcount, maybe slightly down. But the numbers I'm looking at, of course, are the first day of classes. We will have our census later in the semester, and that's when we'll have the actual numbers kind of shake out, but flat to slightly down. But we are seeing those students actually enroll in a greater number of credit hours. So, we think that's positive because they're working to get to that degree and kind of do it. Slightly down in graduate students. And then the state of Missouri, the schools...all of the secondary and elementary schools started a week later this year. And so, we don't even have our dual credit students registered at this point. And that's usually, you know, 8,000 students for us. And I looked at the numbers before I came over, and we had about 2000 registered, so we know a lot more are coming. But we do have, you know, kind of more full time undergraduate and graduate students, which is good. But we saw a decline, you know, in our international students. We saw a decline in our out-of-state students. And we also saw a decline in our part-time students. And I think a lot of that has to do with the economy and students, you know, having money to go to school. And so, that's a concern.
Skalicky: So, what is Missouri State doing right now to make sure people know what the university has to offer, not just here in Missouri, but also across the nation?
Medley: Right. So, what I would say is, previously, we had a very kind of localized focus. And we're the second largest institution in the state, and that means a lot. We are, you know, rare in the fact that we have a public affairs mission. And so, I think that's attractive. But we're spending not just a large amount of time in the state of Missouri, we're also going to Kansas and Oklahoma and Illinois and Texas because those are all states where we think we can attract students, especially Texas. They have more high school graduates than they have seats in their colleges. So, we know that they can export students to us. And so, spending a lot of time doing that. You know, I appreciate Casey Woods as the football coach. They were in every football-playing high school in the state this year. And so, that's Missouri State, right. So, anytime that folks can see us out and about in the communities, but, you know, the recruiters have been out on the road for a couple of weeks already. They're going to high school fairs, doing high school visits. We'll do financial aid nights. So, it's kind of all hands on deck. The thing that I'm most excited about, Michele, is one of our strategic plan goals was to create a strategic enrollment management plan. And we have done that. And now we're to the phase where we're putting it into action. And so, for basically anyone on our campus, so, a faculty member, staff member, an advisor, a student affairs professional, I'm not sure if I have public radio hosts in this playbook, but for anyone who works on campus, we have given basically action items on how you and others can help us recruit because it will take the entire campus to hit that 30,000 goal.
Skalicky: How are you going to measure the impact of all these efforts? Is there a plan in place yet?
Medley: So, the plan is in place. The development of the action team is ongoing. The meetings with like Staff Senate, Faculty Senate, you know, the student affairs leadership team, all of those are underway. And we will measure the results on our numbers. I mean, that's really what we'll look at and see who enrolled, at what level did they enroll? You know, what majors we're actually attracting. We know health sciences is huge for us. But one of the things, you know, we may not be talking about is how nursing is an amazing career for young men. A lot of times people think, oh, well, that's a great career for a woman. It's a great career if you want to stay in your local area. You want to work three twelves. You want to have a tremendous bonus structure if you choose to work overtime. And so, you can actually do that and have a phenomenal work life and quality of life wherever you want to live. And so, just helping people understand that Missouri State has the degrees for them, and we understand that they may want to stay closer to home.
Skalicky: This may be a tough question for you because you're so focused on the strengths. So, you mentioned some of the strengths. What are some of Missouri State's other strengths, and what are some weaknesses and how are those being addressed?
Medley: So, I think our big weakness is, and one of the worst phrases and things I hate most when it comes to advertising, is best kept secrets. There are no good secrets. And so, we as an institution, we're going through a rebranding campaign right now as part of the strategic plan, and we need to be able to tell our story effectively outside of the state of Missouri. And then we need to be able to tell it more deeply and in ways that allow people to connect and understand the value of our education. And I think, for too long, we just relied that folks would know who we were. And we didn't necessarily talk about the incredible value. Our alumni know it. I'm fortunate enough to get to meet a lot of them over the course of time. You know, when we look at the educators in the state who were educated at Missouri State, they know the value of our degrees as well. So, I think that's been a weakness for us that we haven't, you know, been beating our own drum.
Skalicky: Are you talking to students who are here about why they chose Missouri State and using that to help inform your recruitment efforts?
Medley: So, I am all about the story. And when people spend time with me, they know that I like to tell lots of stories. And again, getting the information and the stories from our current students so that we can then translate and share those with future students because they provide the greatest testimonial. And so, working with our student ambassadors, just our students in general, getting them to go back to their high schools and talk about what we have to offer. Those are huge boons for us.
Skalicky: What is the enrollment goal laid out in Missouri State's Strategic Plan, and how confident are you that you can meet that goal?
Medley: So, the goal is 30,000 students, and I'm very confident we can meet that goal. Where I will tell you that I think we need to be laser focused and really may struggle or be challenged is the population mix. And so, as we've seen over the course of the past few years, our dual credit students enrollment is taking off. We are working through the demographic cliff with our first year and our transfer students. How are we engaging adult students? How are we getting people to come back for graduate degrees? So, I think making the 30,000 number isn't frightening to me. I want to make sure that we hit that mix that creates a great balance on campus, a great student experience and then is also where we want to be as an institution. Because if I give every student who comes a huge scholarship, that doesn't necessarily help us meet our goals because we may not be able to offer the services because I've given money away. You know, so there's all of those balances that we have to weigh, and that is where the challenge comes in.
Skalicky: How are you ensuring that you're reaching a broad demographic of potential students?
Medley: We go wherever we are asked. We specifically target areas where we think that there is population and ability and interest and capacity. And so, that is across the entire state. I take very seriously that we are a public institution serving the state of Missouri. We will be in every high school fair. We will visit as many of those high schools as we can get to. At the same time, making sure, you know, we need a bigger mix of out-of-state students to come to us. We talked about, you know, needing more international students and the challenges that that that can present. But we look at the demographics all the time, and we look at the mix of students all the time, but we are a public serving institution who should be serving students from all different walks of life.
Skalicky: Well, there's so much we could talk about today on the topic of enrollment, but unfortunately, we are out of time. Thanks for talking with me today.
Medley: Anytime. Thanks for having me.
