Abstract:
Nationwide colleges of agriculture have struggled to meet the need for qualified graduates to fill jobs in the food, renewable energy and environmental industry sectors. Even with increasing enrollment in some disciplines, colleges of agriculture and natural resources are estimated to provide only 54% of the graduates needed to fill the expected job openings between 2010 and 2015 (Goeker et al., 2010). This creates a need for colleges to improve recruitment efforts and utilize financial resources more efficiently. This study examined recruitment efforts as they relate to the college-choice decisions of matriculant and non-matriculant students entering a college of agriculture. Results showed no notable difference existed in academic performance between matriculants and non-matriculants. Differences did exist when examining the racial composition of the two groups. When examining recruitment practices, both groups reported the most useful sources of information to be visits to campus, participation in student events on campus, and personal conversations with faculty. Findings also suggest that web-based information is critically important to the decision making process. Parents and/or guardians were found to be the most influential people in respondents’ college-choice decision, followed by their high school agriculture teachers.
Key words:
Matriculant, non-matriculant students
 13 Rocca June13.pdf | [ ] | 307 kB |
