Kropf, Kevin C.
Abstract:
Small, private colleges and universities have faced an existential crisis since the 2008 Great Recession. Changing demographics surrounding the number of high school graduates, intense pricing pressure, and attacks on the relevance of higher education have led to numerous closings and significant cuts at institutions from coast to coast (Huffman, 2013; Docking, 2015; Bransberger & Michelau, 2016). Renewed interest in community colleges and for-profit colleges along with the advent of honors programs at flagship public institutions have further eroded the student base from which many private schools draw for their entering classes (Callahan, 2014; Carlson, 2014). The development of new academic and athletic programs has been utilized to stem enrollment losses or to grow enrollment (Docking, 2015; Docking 2016; Bruder 2017). This study built upon the scholarship regarding non-Division I Colleges and the impact of athletics on enrollment by investigating the impact on first-year male enrollment at private, four-year colleges that added intercollegiate football between 2005 and 2014. This study examined both the change in the number of new male student enrollees and the variation in the gender balance of the freshman class of the institutions that added intercollegiate football. The results indicated institutions that added intercollegiate football grew new male student enrollments at a statistically significant level. In addition, a positive growth in the percentage of male students in the entering freshman class was realized at a statistically significant level by those institutions that added football. The interaction effect based on an institution’s membership classification was not statistically significant for either new male student enrollment or gender balance. The study’s results provide confirmation that iiiadding an intercollegiate football team can grow male enrollment and provide a greater percentage of male students in an entering freshman class.