Columbia College Chicago Grows Enrollment 34%, Grows NTR $1M, and Increases Diversity by 14%

For more than 130 years, Columbia College Chicago, located in the heart of Chicago, has been attracting and educating some of the most creative students around. What began as the Columbia School of Oratory in the late 1800s now includes more than 60 undergraduate and graduate programs specializing in the arts and media, and an annual festival that features the multi-disciplinary talents of the college’s ‘wildly creative students.’ It is the go-to institution for students who want to turn their artistic and innovative dreams into reality.

Krysa Thomasma, a recent graduate, was drawn to the school to study design and illustration; it was their first choice. "Some of my professors really made the experience special, and the city campus allowed me to meet the most interesting people. It all helped me to grow a lot as a person."

For Thomasma, and students like them, Columbia College Chicago offers incredible opportunities to study, live, work, and play in the country’s third largest city. The school knew it had a lot to offer and was looking for creative ways to increase its enrollment, maximize its financial aid strategy, and implement a successful longterm strategy for a growing campus in the Windy City.

Transparency and Analytics Increase NTR and Enrollment in First Year

The relationship with Othot began in 2018. Columbia College Chicago had a financial aid strategy it believed could yield more students but was eager to validate and update the approach. College enrollment leaders—who had requested an additional ~$10M more in their budget for aid—needed to ensure a strong ROI. They learned about Othot’s unique predictive data science models and the timing was right to integrate the platform into Columbia College Chicago’s process.

"I was impressed with the idea that the user has more power than they do with a lot of other partners for these types of services," shared Cynthia Grunden, Assistant Vice President of Student Financial Services.

"With other groups that do aid-leveraging work for schools, you basically get a list and award based on that list. You don’t really have transparency into where the information came from, and you can’t test other options or other ideas you might have for influencing a student like you can with Othot."

What started out as a trial run to validate the college’s financial process, resulted in:

• An increase in enrollment of more than 400 students in the first year
• A $1+M gain in NTR in the first year
• A 4.3% increase in enrollment the second year

Grunden adds, "What we were really looking for were insights into aid leveraging, and what we got was so much more."

Strategic Adjustments and Focus on Individual Students Results in Unexpected Benefits

Othot’s platform has provided the college with an opportunity to rethink and refine some of its financial aid award strategies, helping to increase enrollment—even in the pandemic year. It also yields data in real time so that the college can gauge a student’s interest throughout the recruitment process. Information on individuals allows the Admissions team to target outreach and promote events, while the Financial Aid Office uses sensitivity analyses to guide award decisions.

Columbia College Chicago was an early adopter of Othot platform’s "matrix" feature; it allows them to test and optimize financial aid allocations for the entire student population and for specific subsets. Sensitivity analysis data are overlayed with the college’s strategy to identify where to increase or decrease awards each year. It is a tool that helps with validation and planning.

According to Grunden, "I use the platform to look for specific types of students to see how different award amounts will change a student’s likelihood to enroll. Before we had these tools, we would give everyone in the same group the same amount of money and see how it went. Now, we have a greater level of precision in our aid offerings."

Based on what Columbia College Chicago learned using Othot findings, the school:

• Restructured how it awarded scholarships
• Identified students who would benefit from additional aid beyond their initial packaging strategy and how much would be expected to make a meaningful difference, and
• Made the college more affordable for lower income students

It was important to drive affordability and increase freshman diversity. In fact, while overall enrollment continues to rise year-over-year, the percentage of students of color increased by 14% between 2018 and 2020.

Moving Forward with Advanced Analytics Post Pandemic

Columbia College Chicago is committed to working with Othot for the foreseeable future. Interested in exceeding freshman enrollment goals, the school is turning to advanced analytics to help define sound admissions and financial aid award strategies as they review pricing strategies and eliminate all forms of testing. "Columbia College is not using test scores for placement, scholarships, or admissions decisions. We are moving away from testing as part of our values and to be more inclusive," notes Grunden.

She concludes, "Every year, we start with a strategy that we test with Othot’s modeling, because having the truth from Othot disproves the myths. It’s objective and we a can take the information we get to make better decisions for our students and our institution."

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