Jenny Sawyer has been telling families no for over a decade. She'll open ChatGPT mid-call, run the math in real time, and tell a student their second-choice school is a better financial decision than the one she runs admissions for. Then she'll wish them well.
She's the Associate Provost and Executive Director of Admissions at the University of Louisville, a public university in a poor state that has just posted five consecutive years of enrollment records, including a class of 3,373 students that broke the all-time record the year it was set. Jenny built that record by starting her career in student affairs, not recruitment, and never fully leaving. In her view, retention work starts the moment you pick up the phone.
In this episode:
- How Jenny's background in student affairs rewired the way she thinks about recruitment and why she tells her staff to think of themselves as enrollment counselors, not admissions counselors
- The live call where she opened ChatGPT, ran the numbers, and talked a student out of taking $25,000 in freshman-year loans at her own school
- Why she thinks media coverage of student debt is actively scaring away the students who would actually benefit from smart borrowing
- What the "missing middle" looks like (families who don't qualify for Pell but still can't cover the gap) and what UofL is doing about it
- How UofL grew transfer enrollment 22% by getting ahead of the credit evaluation problem with AI
- Her honest read on what the demographic cliff means for schools that won't adapt and why she thinks it's the most exciting time in higher ed to be paying attention
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