Media arts and technology sophomore Colin Marshall poses in his dorm room with hip-hop artist swag from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. Marshall, originally from St. Paul, Minn., came to MSU to pursue a career in film because of Michigan’s budding film industry.
Laron Johnson was a resident of New York City, a central hub of America and a city with endless attractions. And yet, by the time he was in middle school, Johnson already was planning to move away for college.
It was at a college fair he first found out about MSU. He was intrigued by the university’s medical schools; in particular, the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine and MSU’s extensive study abroad program.
“I’ve always wanted to experience new things,” Johnson, now a nutritional sciences sophomore, said.
“It just wouldn’t be right if I went to college in my own state with people that I knew — I would rather be outside of my comfort zone. I like to experience new things and new people.”
Media arts and technology sophomore Colin Marshall said leaving his home state of Minnesota to attend MSU had a similar life-changing effect for him.
“Being out-of-state has changed the person I am in terms of interaction with other people. I have the opportunity to redefine myself,” Marshall said. “I just really like that I got the chance to do that.”
Johnson and Marshall aren’t alone in their thinking. Last school year, 20.9 percent of MSU students were not residents of Michigan — the highest number in the past decade. As the population of Michigan dwindles and fewer students enroll in K-12 schools, MSU is looking outside of the mitten to discover future Spartans.
The shrinking mitten
In 2000, the number of children entering kindergarten in Michigan was slightly more than the number of students leaving the 12th grade, according to calculations from the state Senate Fiscal Agency.
It has not happened since.
Multiple factors have affected population rates in Michigan. Birth rates have been decreasing steadily for the past 20 years. In 2007, almost 30,000 fewer children were born in Michigan compared to 1990, according to the Michigan Department of Community Health.
Migration from Michigan also plays a part, said Jan Ellis, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Education.
“There are people that are typically moving out of state for a variety of reasons,” Ellis said. “Some of that depends on the economy and job opportunity.”
Last year, there were 125,840 high school seniors and 139,027 freshmen enrolled in Michigan public schools, according to data from the Center for Educational Performance and Information.
But in grades below ninth, numbers begin to drop. There were 117,131 fifth graders in Michigan last year, and 115,526 first graders. And another study from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education shows conditions are not expected to improve in the next 12 years.
MSU’s response to its largest base of student shrinking?
Take up its role as a “world-grant” institution, said James Cotter, director of the MSU Office of Admissions.
Bringing them in
MSU was founded as a land-grant college to serve Michigan residents, but in recent years, it has worked to extend its influence to a wider range of people, Cotter said.
“Being a land-grant or world-grant institution, it’s about opportunities, it’s about collaborative learning,” he said. “And those are things MSU does very well.”
Throughout the years, out-of-state attendance at MSU has varied. In the 1960s, MSU had a high number of students from the East Coast. This number shrank in the following decades, Cotter said. But the university began to see an upswing in out-of-state attendance in recent years. The number of non-resident students has been increasing
since 2000 in an attempt to keep class sizes steady while the in-state pool of students shrinks.
“We’re looking to start where the population is increasing, like California, like Florida, like New York,” Cotter said.
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“There’s a great deal of strategy that goes into this.”
Cotter said the university uses a variety of methods to attract new students, among them using networking sites, such as Facebook, as well as traditional brochures. Athletic teams put the school’s name into the media. Alumni help promote the school in their own communities.
The university also began to promote its image with a $478,000 campaign consisting of TV and magazine advertisements, as well as larger print ads and the Spartan Sagas initiative. The campaign targeted several out-of-state areas, including Chicago and Orange County, Calif.
“I think it’s telling the MSU story; it does increase the potential for out-of-state recruitment,” Cotter said.
A second home
Tyler Haley knew from the moment he stepped onto campus that MSU would be his school.
“I just felt like I belonged here,” the mechanical engineering sophomore said. That feeling, the reputation of MSU’s engineering school and a scholarship sealed Haley’s future as a Spartan, despite the fact he was an Ohio resident coming from a family full of University of Michigan Wolverines.
Scholarships to MSU make it possible for many students to attend the school. But the reputation and standing of many of MSU’s programs is enough to attract students like Johnson, even when MSU is not the best choice financially. Last year when one of Johnson’s tuition payments came late, he temporarily was dropped from all his classes.
But when Johnson offered to leave MSU after his freshman year, his mother, Gail Johnson, told her son not to worry.
“It’s a struggle to get the tuition,” Gail Johnson said. “I want him to be at a place where he’s going to thrive. He’s going to leave with a degree that’s for something, so some sacrifices have to be made.”
Another reason some decide to go out of state — one Gail Johnson discovered when the New York native attended Hampton University in Hampton, Va. — was to get a new taste of culture and an expanded perspective.
“You get a chance to experience other ways of life,” Gail Johnson said.
“Anytime you have new experiences, you have a way to add to your life — whether it’s something you use in the four years of school or in a lifetime. All of your experiences allow you to broaden your horizons.”
