In the tuition-discounting report it released last week, the National Association of College and University Business Officers presented a troubling picture.

The discount rate, which measures how much of colleges’ gross tuition and fees is given back to students as aid, has been going up among the private, nonprofit colleges responding to the group’s survey. At the same time, more than half of the colleges had decreased or flat freshman enrollment. The data, the report says, suggest that discounting “is no longer working effectively at a large number of colleges and universities.”

That’s certainly a sobering thought for the large number of private colleges relying on a high-price, high-discount pricing model. But is it the full story?

Kathy Kurz doesn’t think so. She wrote a response to the report on a blog run by Scannell & Kurz, the higher-education consulting firm, where she…

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It’s April, and high-school seniors are in the thick of considering which of the colleges that have accepted them to attend. Brian Rosenberg has a message for those students who are making up their minds about Macalester College, where he is the president.

In a video on the college’s Web site, Mr. Rosenberg says he understands that price is an important consideration as students choose a college. One imagines it’s a topic he hears a lot of concern about, given that Macalester’s comprehensive fee (which includes room and board) is more than $50,000. But student should also consider value, Mr. Rosenberg says–what they get for their money at a particular college.

“We do everything we can to make Macalester affordable and accessible to an economically diverse group of students,” Mr. Rosenberg says. “But it’s important to remember that you have the opportunity to make this choice only …

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Philadelphia—Enrollment managers increasingly rely on transfer students to help meet their colleges’ goals. But transfer students often have different expectations and needs than traditional freshmen do. With that in mind, some colleges have separate admissions counselors to work exclusively with transfers, while others cross-train their staffs to work with both populations.

The merits and drawbacks of each approach were discussed during a session at the annual meeting of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Counselors here on Monday.

Iowa Wesleyan College used to have a traditional recruiting model, with four counselors for first-year students who traveled to different parts of the country and one transfer-student counselor, said Julie Fopma, associate director of admissions. But there were problems with this model, she said. The workload varied from …

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Michael V. Reilly will become the new executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, known as Aacrao, in June.

Mr. Reilly, who until recently was executive director of the Council of Presidents, in Washington State, shared his thoughts on how Aacrao can support its members during challenging times shortly before the group’s annual meeting, in Philadelphia.

Q. What about working for Aacrao appealed to you?

A. I was an admissions director and an enrollment person for many years, and Aacrao was very important to me in my professional development. When I moved into the public-policy arena about four years ago, coming to the Council of Presidents, I really enjoyed this work. So the real excitement for me about Aacrao was the ability to blend those two interests, the professional arena of enrollment and admissions and registration…

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