Virginia's Higher Education Enrollment Projection Process

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) is required by the Code of Virginia (Section 23-9.6:1.4) to:

...review and approve or disapprove all enrollment projections proposed by each public institution of higher education. SCHEV's projections shall be in numerical terms by level of enrollment and shall be used for budgetary and fiscal planning purposes only. The student admissions policies for the institutions and their specific programs shall remain the sole responsibility of the individual boards of visitors.

In accordance with this statutory responsibility, SCHEV produces enrollment projections for the budgetary biennium in the spring of every odd-numbered year. These biennial projections are reviewed and, if necessary, revised each fall in light of actual enrollment data.

Enrollment projections are produced through a consensus process involving Virginia's public colleges and universities, SCHEV, and the Department of Planning and Budget. Staff from each of these entities separately produce projections for each individual institution. Then, they meet to discuss those projections and reach consensus on a final recommendation. That recommendation is then presented to the 11 members of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia for their formal approval.

Since 1997, each institution has been required to submit its proposed projection in a computerized spreadsheet that details the institution's assumptions regarding incoming students. Based on those assumptions, historic progression/retention rates, and current actual enrollments, the spreadsheet calculates projected enrollments for the six-year forecasting horizon.

This procedural change has been widely recognized for significantly improving the accuracy of Virginia's higher education enrollment projections (see Technical Status Report: An Overview of Expenditure Forecasting in Four Major State Programs, House Document No. 3, Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, August 2000). Whereas prior to 1997 typical annual forecast errors ranged between 2.0 and 3.0 percent, since 1997 they have plummeted to between 0.1 and 0.5 percent.

A high degree of accuracy is important because the enrollment projection is critical in determining future needs for buildings and other higher education capital facilities and even small errors can have large fiscal implications. Moreover, enrollment projections have been used in the past, and are likely to be used in the future, in determining higher education operating budget needs as well.

For its part, SCHEV employs two different models to estimate future enrollments. The first is an econometric model. Statewide econometric projections are produced for each category of incoming students (in-state first time freshmen, out-of-state first time freshmen, in-state transfers, etc.), or the inputs into the system, and for expected graduation/attrition, or the outputs from the system. These input and output projections are then applied to current enrollments to derive a projection of future statewide enrollments.

The second model employed by SCHEV is a demographic model. This model takes advantage of SCHEV's detailed student level database to identify the age and county of residence of each student attending a Virginia public college of university. These data are then mapped into projected demographic changes in those counties to derive estimates of likely future enrollments.

If you have questions about SCHEV's enrollment projection process or would like additional information, please contact: