UI Campaigns To Improve Image, Enrollment Idaho’s Student Body Has Dropped 5.6 Percent Over The Past Four Years

Strapped with rising fees and a negative image compounded by increased competition for students, the University of Idaho is launching a media campaign to improve the public’s perception of the school.

University President Robert Hoover expects the privately financed campaign to help the school begin reversing the enrollment decline it has suffered during the past four years.

While the other three four-year schools have seen their student bodies increase since 1993, Idaho has been hit by a 5.6 percent decline.

“We didn’t get into this overnight, and it’s unlikely we’ll get out of it overnight,” Hoover said.

Elgin, Syferd/Drake Communications of Boise will handle the campaign, which could cost upward of a half million dollars.

Hoover’s decision followed a survey of key groups that found the university has a vague image around the state, being viewed as isolated and a party school.

In contrast, those same groups viewed Idaho State University, which has the fastest growing student body, as friendly, cooperative and a good value.

The enrollment decline, which cost the school $667,000 in lost student fees this past year, counters original projections by planners that enrollment would grow in the 1990s as high school populations rebounded and adults tossed out of their jobs by economic upheaval sought education for new careers.

But the strong economy has prospective students choosing jobs over college, Hoover said.

That has dampened the rise of full-time students on the other campuses as well, although additional part-time students have kept their overall enrollments rising.

“When the job market is bad, enrollment goes up, and when the job market is good, enrollment goes down,” Lewis-Clark State College Vice President Mike Hostetler said.

The entire picture has intensified the interest of East Coast schools in students from the West to sustain their enrollments. In addition to slick catalogues and enticing programs, their recruiters are bringing students to their campuses while they are still in high school, often for special summer programs, in hopes of building a relationship.

Sid Eder, the summer programs administrator at the University of Idaho, said the school intends to elevate the visibility of its longstanding program of special summer classes for high school students interested in earning college credit.

“Why should it be our best kept secret?” Eder asked.