State's rural campuses cast wide net for students

The silver Toyota hybrid labeled with the words "University of Minnesota Morris" is hoping to gather some new Cougars as it makes its way from high school to high school across the Twin Cities this fall.

The man behind the wheel, Mike Vandenberg, is an admissions counselor at Minnesota-Morris. But Vandenberg's office is the second bedroom of the Elk River apartment that he and his wife share. His charge is simple: Push Minnesota-Morris -- a small, public liberal arts university far out on the prairie -- into the mix of schools under consideration by top high school students from the Twin Cities.

It's a question of survival. Because of the shrinking rural population in Minnesota and elsewhere in the Midwest, Morris and other rural campuses need to recruit more students from the heavily populated corridor that stretches from St. Cloud to the Twin Cities and Rochester.

The campuses have slashed their tuition for nonresidents, hired image consultants and started to recruit students as far away as Alaska.

Vandenberg, who will often hit three or four high schools in a day, understands the importance of his job.

"The local school districts [around Morris] aren't getting bigger," he said. "UMM isn't someplace that's on the radar too much for many students. They just don't know anything about it. That's one of the things I'm trying to change."

Over the next decade, the number of high school graduates in Minnesota is expected to decrease by 3 percent, according to the University of Minnesota.

But that number is smaller than several other Midwest states, thanks to the population boom in the Twin Cities suburbs and exurbs.

By comparison, the number of high school graduates is expected to drop by 23 percent in North Dakota, 8 percent in South Dakota and 6 percent each in Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.

With population dropping faster in rural Minnesota, campuses such as Minnesota-Morris, Minnesota-Crookston, Bemidji State and Southwest Minnesota State in Marshall, face significant challenges in filling every freshman class.

"There's no question it's harder; the competition is tough," said Richard Shearer, director of enrollment services at Southwest Minnesota State. "In some of the smaller communities around us, we used to get 10 or 15 students [per year]; now we're getting five or six."

No Minnesota public four-year school is currently seeing any serious drops in new students, but making sure enrollment remains stable or grows isn't as easy as it has been.

Morris' unique situation

Minnesota-Morris may be the most remote of any four-year school in the state. It's in a western Minnesota town of 5,000. It's about 150 miles west of Minneapolis and 45 miles from the nearest Target store.

For now, successful high school students continue to make the trek. A typical Morris student graduated in the top 25 of his or her high school class and scored somewhere in the mid-to-upper 20s on the ACT.

"We will continue to hold that we will not sacrifice that profile for the sake of getting more numbers," said James Morales, the associate vice chancellor for enrollment at Morris.

The school has hired Chicago marketing firm LipmanHearne to examine Minnesota-Morris' brand.

"The recurring issue for us is visibility. It isn't what we offer," Morales said. "They don't know we're here or they hear of us and think we're part of the [Minnesota State Colleges and Universities] system."

The goal for Morris -- which considers its competition to be schools such as St. Olaf, Gustavus Adolphus, Luther College in Iowa and top large public schools such as Wisconsin-Madison -- is to enroll 2,100 students by 2013, roughly 400 more than currently on the books. To accomplish that, the school either has to become more effective at recruiting or has to lower its admission standards.

One thing Morris has done is to reimburse prospective students who live more than 350 miles away up to $500 just for visiting the campus.

"Of the students who took advantage of that, about 60 percent enrolled," Morales said. "It helps us minimize the barriers."

Still, administrators acknowledge that the No. 1 question from prospective students is some version of: "What is there to do there?"I think the location can be [a liability], but I think it can also be an opportunity," Morales said. "At the national college fair, a student came up to me and asked 'What would be the biggest challenge for me?' She is from Mahtomedi. She's a top student, would be a perfect student for us. She runs cross-country, plays a musical instrument. I said to her, 'I think in your case, it would be location and here's why. A lot of students from the Twin Cities don't understand the change that it would be to come to a rural setting. But in the same breath, it's also a change.'"

No out-of-state tuition

In recent years, Minnesota-Morris, Minnesota-Crookston, Southwest Minnesota State, Bemidji State and Minnesota State Moorhead changed their tuition policy and now charge nonresidents the same amount as residents.

And they're looking further afield for students. Southwest Minnesota State -- which has seen its numbers of South Dakotans drop over the past several years -- is targeting Iowa, the Omaha area, suburban Chicago and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Minnesota-Morris has had success in Colorado and is now also attending college fairs in Arizona, Texas and Florida. Bemidji State has begun seeing an increase in the number of students it secures from Alaska.

"Our football coach began recruiting some players from there," said Russel Kreager, Bemidji State's admissions director. "Right now, we've got conversations going with students [in Alaska] who are graduating in 2010. We're targeting about 900 students either in Anchorage or the Kenai Peninsula."

Jeff Shelman • 612-673-7478

Jeff Shelman • jshelman@startribune.com