Youngstown State makes effort to boost enrollment

A marketing campaign focusing on student success stories began this week.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University wants to restore the annual growth in enrollment that it was experiencing before last fall.
University enrollment had risen each fall for four consecutive years, and a 0.5 percent growth was projected in fall 2005, but it didn't happen.
Instead, enrollment dipped by more than 2 percent, with strikes by both the faculty and classified employee unions just before the start of classes a likely cause for the decline.
YSU had 13,101 students in September 2004, but the number dropped to 12,812 in September 2005.
The university is working to increase enrollment this fall, and Dr. David C. Sweet, YSU president, outlined some of those steps for the YSU trustee board Friday.
The university already has completed two early-enrollment sessions designed to spark prospective student interest and will have a third, he said.
Further, about 300 prospective students attended a recent "Red, White and YOU Day" recruitment program on campus, he said.
YSU increased the amount of certain scholarships last year (Trustee Scholarships, housing scholarships, a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship) and doubled the amount of Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency aid given to Pennsylvania students. The university will add a new academic scholarship program this fall, he said.
Fall applications from regional spring high school graduates are up 2 percent over this time last year, Sweet said.
New campaign
The university also launched a new marketing campaign this week, he said, building on the "YSU's Success Stories -- Be One" campaign.
A multimedia campaign under the banner "Your Success is Our Story" will target the greater Cleveland, Youngstown and western Pennsylvania markets, said Walt Ulbricht, executive director of marketing and communications.
It features 30-second television ads as well as print and billboard components, he said, noting the TV ads will be shown more than 2,800 times on various cable outlets.
There will be three versions of the ads, with the first, "A Century of Success Stories" (a reflection on YSU's upcoming centennial in 2008), already beginning to air. It features some YSU graduates talking about their career successes.
It will be followed by new ads with slightly different messages in July and a third set of ads in October, Ulbricht said.
Most of the creative work on the ads was done in-house, he said, noting that YSU also used the help of Prodigal Media Co. of Boardman with production.
Sweet said YSU commissioned an image survey to compare itself to other institutions of higher learning seen as YSU competitors.
The study showed that YSU was rated on a par or better with the other schools in terms of facilities and faculty but lagged behind in the student image department. The university's open-enrollment policy may have been a factor in that category, he said.
Launching a new marketing campaign focusing on YSU success stories is perceived as a way to improve that image, the president added.
gwin@vindy.com