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You're watching the Faculty of the Mace Show, where faculty authority is promoted and protected
in the academy of the twenty-first century.
Welcome to Episode Five: The "Magic" Headcount Formula -- What Is It and How Does It Explain
Higher Education Management? In this episode, we look at the "magic" headcount formula and
the important behavior that it predicts: that is, the triad of managing recruitment, retention,
and reentries in higher education. What's magic about it? Well, we can use it to predict
many behaviors that we observe in higher education management. It helps us to understand them.
Let's start out by defining the variable, "n" -- "n" counts the academic time periods.
They could be quarters, semesters or years. Let's use, in our example, "n" to mean quarters
-- and let's put up here on the screen an example where you can see that there are four
quarters in an academic year, and, for the first quarter, "n" equals 1, for the second
quarter, "n" equals 2, and so on. Our problem is to figure out -- we're approaching a new
term and we want to look at our beginning headcount -- how should we initialize that
number? Let's put another formula up on the screen and you'll see that our beginning headcount,
at the current period, "n", will be equal to the ending headcount at the previous period,
"n - 1". Now, that's a little bit abstract, so let's make it a little more concrete. Let's
use "n" equals 2 for the second quarter and "n - 1" equals 1 for the first quarter --
and let's put that formula up on the screen -- and you'll see that, for the second quarter
-- how do we initialize it? -- well, the beginning headcount at the second quarter,
indicated by the "2", is equal to the ending headcount for the first quarter, indicated
by "1", and let's set that equal to one hundred just for the purposes of discussion. Now,
if that still is a little abstract, let's do this -- let's put the next formula up on
the screen -- and you'll see that the beginning head count for quarter 2, indicated by "Q2",
is equal to the ending head count for the previous quarter, indicated by "Q1".
Now that we've initialized out headcount, we're looking at a different problem. We want
to look at our starting headcount, in quarter 2, and our ending headcount, in quarter 2,
and to do that, we need to consider all the factors that affect out student headcount.
Let's put a general, and simple, formula up on the screen, now, and you'll see that to
calculate the headcount at the end of quarter 2, we simply take the headcount at the beginning
of that same quarter and we make adjustments. Now, what adjustments do we make? Well, let's
put up the next formula, and you'll see that, again, to calculate the ending headcount for
quarter 2, we take the beginning headcount for quarter 2 and we add in student additions
-- all the factors that add students -- and take away, obviously, student losses
-- that's all the factors that cause us to lose students.
Let's take a look at some of those factors. These are, basically, definitions. And, as
you see this formula, you'll see that "total student additions" is equal to "starts" plus
"reentries". "Starts" are students who are starting their studies for the very first
time. They're newly enrolled students. "Reentries" are students who have been previously enrolled.
They've dropped out and now they're returning to resume their studies.
Now, let's take a look at "starts". There are several kinds of starts. The "regular
starts" are students who are ready to go, Monday morning, on the first day of class.
"Late starts" are students who come in, usually, during the first and second week and they're
ready to start classes. "No shows" are students who we expected to start -- they've been enrolled,
their financial aid is in place -- and, for some reason, they don't show up. Maybe, we
can't contact them, so, basically, they're a no show.
Let's look at the definition of "total student subtractions". We'll put that formula up on
the screen. There are three main reasons for this: "non-returns", "drops", and "grads".
Well, "grads" is a good thing. Those are the students that successfully graduate. "Drops"
are students who drop for one reason or another -- and we'll take a look at that in a moment
-- and "non-returns" are students who don't come back to resume classes this term for
one reason or another.
Let's put the definition of "non-returns" up on the screen, now. "Non-returns" are broken
out into two categories. There are: "eligible non-returns" and "ineligible non-returns".
The "eligible non-returns" are students who were enrolled last term, they passed all their
classes, they've maintained satisfactory academic performance, their financing is in place,
and we expect them to return, and, for some reason, Monday morning, start of class, they
don't show up. "Ineligible non-returns" are students who, perhaps, were failing a class
or two, they've failed to maintain satisfactory academic performance, and they are ineligible
to return, even if they desire to.
Now, let's take a look at "drops". We'll put the "drops" formula up on the screen, now.
You can see that there are two kinds of "drops". There are "elective drops" and "forced drops".
"Elective drops" are students who, for one reason or another, elect or decide to drop
out of school. "Forced drops", however, are students who cannot continue, not because
they don't want to, but they are, simply, no longer allowed to. For instance, they have
failed to maintain satisfactory attendance and they are dropped because of Department
of Education regulations.
All these factors can be combined into one relatively large, complicated formula --
and, we're going to put that up on the screen right now. There it is. Now, we can simplify,
thank goodness, this calculated formula by making some assumptions -- simplifying assumptions.
So, let's put up our simplifying assumptions on the screen and take a look at them. There
they are. "Adds" is equal to "starts" plus "reentries". So, we're going to define a variable
called "adds" that includes the way that we can add students. "Losses" is equal to "non-returns"
plus "drops". So, that variable, "losses", defines the way we can loose students. And
we're separating out graduation because the graduates are a positive factor. We want people
to graduate. So, if we substitute in "adds" and "losses", we get the "magic" headcount
formula and we're going to put that up on the screen. May I have a drum roll, please!
There it is! Thank you..., thank you..., thank you..., thanks. That's the magic headcount
formula and that formula allows us to understand and predict many behaviors in educational
management.
Produced at Studio C, Colorado, USA.