College Campus Trends 2006 - Nancy Federspiel, Director

I, like many of us, like to reflect on the events of the past twelve months as the year draws to a close. For me, this usually happens after the flurry of the holiday season rather than before. I thought that I would take some time to reflect on the college visits that I made in 2006 and share my thoughts.

In the year 2006 I visited 38 colleges and universities ranging in geographical location from New England, to New York and the eastern seaboard, to Colorado. I spent time on each of these campuses attending information sessions, taking campus tours and talking with admissions folks. I asked myself, what is the common theme on these campuses? What generalizations (if any) can I make about the state of college campuses in this year?

It only took seconds to realize that at just about every college campus that I visited I was dodging yellow hazard tape and skirting temporary chain link fences. Out of the 38 colleges that I visited I can think of only one that was not undergoing some major construction project! Assuming that my list of colleges is a good representation of a cross-section of American campuses, it is safe to say that college campuses are physically changing dramatically these days.

What does all this growth and all of these improvements mean? In some way, it helps to aid our understanding of why college tuition bills continue to go up and up. Clearly colleges are spending tons of money lately, and it has to come from some place.

I also noticed that a large percentage of the construction projects that I saw were for quality of life enhancements such as student centers, residence halls, exercise facilities and dining halls. It occurs to me that not only have the stakes been raised in terms of students competing for spaces at American colleges but the colleges are also competing heavily amongst themselves to win students' tuition dollars. One college is not going to sit by idle while watching other colleges upgrade their facilities. If a school wants to maintain (or gain) popularity these days, it must have state-of-the-art facilities.

The message in this to parents is that if you saw a college campus twenty years ago, don't assume that means that you are familiar with the school. It may be unrecognizable today. I'm afraid that our impressions of colleges as they were "when we were in school" no longer hold water. A college search today deserves taking the time for a second look and doing considerable research; after all, the financial stakes warrant serious consideration.