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Thomas Largent
Drexel University

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Increasing costs, dwindling funding, and decreasing numbers of college age students are the realities that higher education institutions are faced with. These realities have caused a lot of institutions to increase pressure on their admissions teams to get students to enroll in their school, no matter how late. Based on previous research studies, this spells a recipe for disaster for student success as far as retention and completion rates. Institutions will continue to admit late starting students to help reach enrollment and budgetary goals but to what effect on the institution.

Late starting students cause a ripple effect on their selected institutions. Their decision causes department like financial aid, admissions, advising, residence life, and academics to change policies and procedures to accommodate them. For Financial Aid, it can increase processing time for their whole financial aid package so the student may not have the whole picture until well after they start school. This can cause confusion as the student may have thought they were paying less for school when they were hurried through the process. This may leave the student with a thought that the school was just looking to get them in the door and registered and not worried about them. That is just one of the issues that students may have. With each late starting student, there can be more issues. This research will review the traditional theoretical models on retention, actual effects to the student’s success,  and the perceived customer service effect.

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Late Starting: Students who miss the deadlines for admissions or housing in non-open enrollment schools and students who registered within 2 weeks of the start of the semester for open-access schools
Open-Access: Schools with no set deadlines for enrollment other than the end of the add/drop period

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There is a lot of research about the effects on student performance when talking about late starting students, especially two-year students. There is very little research about the effects that late starting students have on the institution as a whole.

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The importance of programs and policies regarding late starting will be reviewed to ensure the institution is ready

Leadership will have more data to really look into the effect of late starting students from an immediate measure instead of trailing measures like retention and completion.

Open-Access is still open but more streamlined with more support opportunities.

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Based on the current gaps, the next steps are as follows:

- Continue to research the whole effect the late starters have on an institution

-Determine if policy changes have help both the student and the institution in the lagging measures

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The purpose of this research is to examine the true effects that late starting students have on an institution. The research will help provide the whole picture of the late starting student and not just the student success as most research has focused on.

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With this being said, even less research has been done about the effects (positive or negative) that late enrolled students have on an institution and its departments for a day to day operational stand point.

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1.     To what extent does late starting students affect the processing and packaging timelines for the department of Financial Aid?

2.     To what effect does late starting students have on hours worked by support staff in departments like academic and student services, during the beginning of a semester before the add/drop date?

3.     What programs are late starting students placed into and what is the retention rate of those students that participate?

4.     To what effect does late starting student impact the academic scheduling of classes regarding enrollment and cancellations?