Lee Royce describes his strategy for boosting enrollment at this private college, including a robust marketing program and global recruiting.

When Lee Royce took the helm as president of Mississippi College in 2002, he faced a discouraging statistic: enrollment at the state’s oldest college was on the decline, and statewide demographics suggested that things would not get better any time soon.

“If you look at us from any demonstrable income or competitive point of view, you’d think, ‘This is not the place to do this sort of business,’” Royce said. “Central Mississippi is probably the most difficult place you could imagine for having a private college.”

Those reasons include low income, a low high school graduation rate, and a strong preference among the state’s college-bound students to attend public institutions.

Royce concluded that changes were needed to ensure the survival of Mississippi College, the nation’s second oldest Baptist college. “I knew we had to do a better job of expanding our footprint,” he said. With a master’s degree in business management and a doctorate in higher education administration, Royce took an analytical approach. “If we were going to grow enrollment, we were either going to have to find new markets or take marketshare away from others in the area.”

Lee Royce

Many of the techniques Royce employed in his quest to boost enrollment are transferable to other kinds of businesses, he said. “It’s related to a clear analysis of our demographic challenges and the challenges of our marketing program,” he said. Expanding the traditional student base was simply the result of improved marketing strategies, Royce said. The college engaged an advertising agency to create radio and television ads, added two new recruiters, and expanded its online presence with an improved Web site. It also created personal Web pages for all new students. “That helped close the deal, so to speak,” he said.

Royce also realized that when the college raised its prices in the late 1990s, it lost about 350 commuters. He decided to appeal to a new group of commuters with a night program designed with working adults in mind, a plan that was successful during his tenure as president of Anderson College in Anderson, SC.

On campus and at two off-site locations rented by Mississippi College, night students take business or public relations classes on Monday and Thursday evenings, completing each semester in eight weeks instead of the traditional 16 weeks. “It’s been a very good growth market for us,” Royce said, noting that the night program draws a different group of students than its traditional day program. Seventy percent are women in their late 20s to mid-40s, and 45% percent are African-American (compared to the 16% African-American population of the 18- to 21-year-old residential student population). About 340 working adults attending the night program, nearly 8% of the college’s total enrollment.

Making contact
When he arrived, Royce was shocked to discover that the college had just nine international students. “I had known of colleges that were in obscure places and had all kinds of international students,” he said. “I knew there was an international airport here, so I said, ‘What’s our problem?’”

But developing an international program involves more than running a shuttle service to the airport. First, Royce said, he needed to find the right person to build the program. He found that person in Jim Brackenridge, along with his wife, Diana. “They came as a team,” Royce said.

With an eye on the Far East, where 75% of the college’s current international students come from, the college worked to establish ties in those markets. “We connected with a top-notch student recruiting agency in China, and we translated our catalog into Mandarin and put it on the Web. We also made contact with recruiters in Taiwan, South Korea, and India,” said Royce.

But even when students score well on the English proficiency exam TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), they don’t necessarily have the language skills to understand complex lectures in a nonnative language. So Mississippi College reached out to those potential students by establishing an English language institute.

Today, the college has about 400 international students, about half of whom are enrolled in graduate degree programs. Their presence enhances the college experience for all of MC’s students, Royce said. “It has diversified the campus and brought a lot of multiculturalism—everything from international events to what’s being served in the dining hall.”

The price is right
How does Mississippi College plan to hold onto its enrollment gains? One strategy is competitive pricing, Royce said. Unlike many nearby states, Mississippi does not have a lottery to fund student grant programs, making the tuition gap between its extensive public college system and its seven private institutions all the more apparent.

So Royce’s team has been keeping price increases below the inflation rate. “For years, our tuition rose 7% to 10%, like most private colleges. The last couple of years, we’ve been increasing less than 2% a year. Meanwhile, our competitors have been increasing prices 5% to 8% percent. The differential is narrowing,” he said.

That policy has resulted in a net income increase because financial aid has remained steady. The college continues to be listed on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of best college values in the South.

Despite Mississippi College’s phenomenal enrollment growth, Royce resists claiming outright victory. “I try to identify the key directions we need to go and move the organization in those directions based on good analysis,” he said. “You make the best judgment that you can, and there’s a pretty fine line between success and failure.”

Deborah Geering, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , is a freelance writer based in Atlanta.