BusinessReport.com

At least we saw it coming.

Thanks to demographic fallout from the bleak days of the 1980s oil bust, Louisiana is running low on 19-year-olds. Nearly 150,000 jobs evaporated when the bottom fell out. Tens of thousands of women of childbearing age fled the state, thus the looming shortage.

It will cause problems. The labor market, for instance, will only get tighter. Plus, a shortage of teenagers is not a happy situation for institutions of higher learning which depend on a steady supply of tuition-paying warm bodies.

LSU, for one, has stepped up out-of-state recruitment by establishing satellite offices in other cities.

Houston is the biggest market for incoming freshmen from out-of-state, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which also has a recruiting office. After Texas, it’s Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. LSU maintains a satellite office in Memphis that—in addition to Tennessee—covers Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Ohio.

Projections show a steep drop in the number of residents turning 19 beginning in late 2004 or early 2005 and continuing through 2010. Nationally, the number of people turning 19 is expected to climb sharply over the same period.

“We’re expecting a decline in college-age population until something like 2012,” says Andy Benoit, LSU’s director of recruiting services. “It’s been predicted for years. We’ve tried to be as proactive as possible over the past few years to get out there and recruit.”

LSU launched its Houston office in 2003, Dallas a year later and Memphis in 2006. Benoit says the recruiting effort has worked well—especially in Houston, where LSU has extremely high name recognition. Texas is LSU’s No. 2 market after Louisiana.

LSU gets roughly 80% of its incoming freshmen from Louisiana. Out-of-state recruiting became even more important after hurricanes Katrina and Rita drove many people from the state.

Texas is a strong market in part because of its “top 10% rule,” a policy that gives all high school students in the top 10% of their graduating class automatic admission to any public university in the state.

Steven Scales, LSU’s recruiter in Houston, says highly competitive high schools have plenty of high achievers who don’t make the top 10%. Some of them might be eligible for full scholarships at LSU.

If they can’t get admitted to Texas A&M or the University of Texas, can’t afford the tuition or whatever, LSU is a logical choice, Scales says. That’s especially true since LSU has begun raising its profile nationally through the flagship agenda, he says.

“It’s a huge benefit for us because we’re the biggest out-of-state school that’s close to Houston,” Scales says. “It’s not a hard sell a lot of times.”

To sweeten the pot, LSU offers a break on tuition to children of LSU alums who live out of state. The Bengal Legacy Scholarship waives up to 75% of out-of-state fees. That’s a $4,000 difference per semester. In-state tuition is between $2,300 and $2,400 a semester.

“It’s close enough to where Texas families are happy,” Scales says.

As far as opening additional recruiting offices, there’s talk but no solid plans. He says if it does happen, Atlanta is the probable target.

“At this point, I would think we’re going to develop what we have,” Scales says. “Of course, they’re always doing market analysis.”

Benoit says his office just hired a new recruiter who will be responsible for beating the bushes in Florida, Georgia and San Antonio (San Antonio because LSU also wants to target the fastest-growing minority groups, including Hispanics).

“We’re not just recruiting for quality students, but we also want a diverse student body,” he says.

Benoit says the key to successful recruiting is getting help from LSU alumni, wherever they might be. After several years of developing a network, LSU has approximately 250 alums across the country hosting receptions or otherwise helping get the word out about the university. Alumni are especially active in places like California and Virginia, Benoit says.

Many times out-of-state students headed to LSU will be treated to a “summer send-off” that gets alums and incoming—or outgoing—freshmen in the same room together. LSU-bound students also get to meet each other. A lot of them find their roommates that way, Benoit says.

“Everything we do is about relationship-building,” he adds.

LSU buys lists of high school prospects from both inside and outside Louisiana and also receives intelligence from prospect cards submitted by alumni, teachers, principals, etc. Then comes the onslaught: post cards, e-mail, you name it.

“It’s a process that begins for most students when they’re sophomores in high school and goes from there,” Benoit says.

Baton Rouge Community College apparently isn’t anticipating the same problems with diminishing 19-year-olds as LSU. Though BRCC has students from others states as well as other countries, it does not recruit out of state, just in East Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes, says spokeswoman Vallory Hills. Nevertheless, the college is expecting an increase in enrollment.

The decrease in 19-year-olds appears on Southern University’s radar screen, however, says Tracie Abraham, executive director of the university’s Office of Admissions and Recruitment.

“We have increased our use of alumni across the country in the recruitment process,” Abraham says. “Perhaps we will bring some 19-year-olds back to Louisiana, or to Louisiana for the first time.”

The concentration is still in-state, however, though Southern has ramped up its recruiting efforts, including recruiting children as early as the eighth grade.

Benoit says recruiting has gotten much more competitive in just the last few years, with a number of universities vying for the same types of students. LSU is trying to go about it as scientifically as possible, doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Not competing isn’t an option, he says, since a university can’t get along without students.

“The situation with higher education today, we can’t take chances,” Benoit says. “We have to be able to function properly and have a qualified and diverse student body. We’ve also had to face the reality that we’ll have a substantial decline in students from the state of Louisiana. We had to make sure all our bases are covered.”