Overcoming Recruitment Challenges Through Financial Aid Optimization

+40%

First-year enrollment growth

+115%

Increase in first-year net tuition revenue, while remaining within planned discount rates + improving selectivity

Financial aid optimization powers sustainable growth in a highly competitive market.

In one of the nation’s most competitive recruitment landscapes, Loyola Marymount University partnered with Carnegie to align financial aid strategy with enrollment goals—driving significant growth, improved selectivity, and expanded student diversity.

The Challenge

Loyola Marymount University faced the challenge of recruiting in an extremely competitive market with tight institutional aid budgets—even with the advantages of an excellent academic reputation and enviable location on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Our Approach

Carnegie’s Financial Aid Optimization team supplemented LMU’s first-year student financial aid optimization work with transfer enrollment consulting and aid optimization, market research with prospective and admitted students, retention modeling and intervention strategies, continuing student survey analysis, and custom consulting engagements on enrollment and fiscal planning.

The Results

During our partnership, first-year enrollment at LMU has grown by more than 40%, and first-year net tuition revenue has increased by 115% while remaining within planned discount rates and improving selectivity. Over the same period, the proportion of historically underrepresented first-year students at LMU has grown from 24% to more than 34%. LMU’s transformation into an international institution has also been notable; in fall 2007, only about 30% of enrolling students hailed from outside California. By fall 2022, that proportion was 48%, including 11% from outside the United States. This enrollment success has been a key driver of LMU’s ascent to a top 100 institution in U.S. News & World Report’s national rankings.

LMU has worked with Carnegie’s Financial Aid Optimization team for 15 years. Over this period of work together, our teams have navigated the Great Recession; the COVID-19 pandemic; multiple changes to standardized testing, high school GPA, and other key application indicators; and significant shifts in the composition of LMU’s applicant pool on geodemographic, academic, and financial fronts.

+40%

First-year enrollment growth

+115%

Increase in first-year net tuition revenue, while remaining within planned discount rates + improving selectivity

+10%

Point increase in the proportion of historically underrepresented first-year students at LMU

The Financial Aid Optimization team at Carnegie has been a valued partner to LMU for 15 years with consistently strong results. Over this time, the team has built an understanding of our mission, our opportunities, and our challenges, which has added significant value to their analytical work for us. We appreciate the sophistication of their work and the trust that has been built over our partnership.

Maureen Weatherall, EdD Vice Provost, Enrollment Management Loyola Marymount University