A trend colleges might not want applicants to notice: It’s becoming easier to get in

The Hechinger Report

Jon Marcus

November 18, 2024

Nathan Smith has already sent three kids to college. But he’s never seen anything like the volume of recruiting materials pouring in since his fourth child reached her senior year in high school this fall.

“If you put the other three together and multiplied it by four, that’s how much mail she’s gotten,” said Smith, who takes a professional interest in this as chair of the Northern Kentucky University Board of Regents.

“What I see is that they’re fishing,” he said of the institutions that are appealing to his daughter to apply. “They can’t catch the fish they want with just one pole. They’ve got to put in 10 poles. I think they’re casting the net further and wider.”

As enrollment in colleges and universities continues to decline — down by more than 2 million students, or 10 percent, in the 10 years ending 2022 — they’re not only casting wider nets. Something else dramatic is happening to the college application process, for the first time in decades:

It’s becoming easier to get in.

Continue Reading