I've wondered the same thing. I have a feeling it's going to start getting easier to get accepted and start costing far more than it currently does.
It was mentioned between conference sessions that enrollment dropped ~10% after the missionary age change, but enrollment was expected to be back over 30K this year or next.
All colleges that accept federal financial aid have to report their enrollment information to the department of education and it's available through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The most recent year available is 2012-13, which had 37,615 undergraduate students, which is down slightly from the 2008-9 peak of 39,085. This isn't really an indicator of a trend though because the 10 year average looks like its about 37,000. IPEDS lags about a year, so in two years we should be able to see if this is a real trend or just normal variation.
When I was there in the early 90s I remember enrollment numbers at 27,000. I only remember because that was the same size as a small city near where I grew up.
Interesting site. Thanks for the link.
Looks like the BYU experience is 69% funded by TSCC. I'm surprised that they have not increased tution more than they have (it was breaching the 1,000 bucks a semester mark when I was there) given the trend toward in-house volunteer janitorial services.
I worry about the 834 tenured professors and where they would find a livelihood if the good ship Zion sank.
Looking at IPEDS, I saw the following for BYU graduation rates: 4-year: 31% 6-year: 78% 8-year: 86%
Given the number of missionaries, that's not altogether surprising.
I pulled UCLA's and University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, just to get a baseline. That rendered the following:
UCLA 4-year: 68 6-year: 90 8-year: 91
UNM 4-year: 12 6-year: 44 8-year: 51
So, BYU's numbers aren't terrible.
If anything, BYU admissions will become less competitive. Arguably, this would be bad for BYU-I in particular, as they are directly impacted by the students that go to BYU that otherwise would have ended up at BYU-I.
iplayedjoe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 51% is good considering the fact that it's not a > school at all. It's a breeding program.
CA girl Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Shummy Wrote: > > > > Sargent Packer's Lonely Hearts Club band. > > Oh my gosh, Shummy - best comment I've heard in > ages - including the ones I make lol :)
About eight years ago, I heard from a very reliable source (I.e., BYU employee) that admissions standards had started to drop. However, the reason they gave was that Mormons were having smaller families and, therefore, there was less competition to get in.
as long as there are rich daddies who want their daughters to marry an RM, prefer one with a degree (what % of N. Americans overall?), there will be Plenty of applicants for UBY.
that + still lot's of Mos living in Southern ID ... who believe UBY is 'the best' college to send Johnnny/Julie...
It's already getting more expensive. We do not live in Utah, we live in the east. In years past I have know several kids that have gone to BYU and paid very little by receiving large scholarships.
Last year my son was accepted to both BYU and USU. USU gave offered him full tuition. BYU offered him a $1,200 scholarship. He is on a large youth message board and he said no one was receiving large scholarships like in years past.
Obviously he chose USU, he isn't an idiot and luckily has moved away from the church while being there.
So it appears while people still want to go there, they may just have to pay more now.
I can understand why your kid wouldn't go to BYU but if you live 2,000 miles from Utah why would your kid choose to go to USU? There have got to hundreds of state schools out there with similar admission standards that offer a similar education for a similar price. No disrespect to your kid but USU is, well, kind of a dump.
BYU is still ridiculously cheap compared to most schools. I have two siblings there and they both just had scholarship money thrown at them like it was nothing on top of the already cheap tuition. Compare that to my alma mater which was 40k per year while I was there and is just increasing. We are already saving major money for our toddler's college because our financial advisor estimates a 4 yr private college tuition will be 350k by the time he is in school. My spouse and I are incredibly lucky and privledged that between our parents and working high paying engineering internships we have no student debt from our undergrad or masters and we both got great jobs right out of school. Now I feel like we should pay our kids school cost since we have this incredible gift from our parents. I wouldn't want my kids to go to BYU but for less than 10k a year that is pretty hard to beat.
(Also I realize state schools would be way cheaper than private but we went to top 10 programs in engineering which I feel like really helped propel our careers)
I feel like more students would go to other schools if BYU weren't so cheap and it's a lot easier to leave if you aren't completely surrounded by Mormons and have your teachers praying to start lecture so I feel like tscc has pretty good incentive to keep it cheap to keep people in.