How Coastal Carolina rebounded from a difficult 2020 with record fundraising, freshmen
Coastal Carolina University has rebounded quite nicely from a period of declining enrollment and the challenges of a coronavirus-marred 2020.
The school anticipates having a record number of freshmen in the upcoming fall semester, and is coming off a record year for athletic fundraising.
CCU’s Board of Trustees was apprised of the positive news Thursday and Friday at its quarterly meeting.
Converting wins into money
Coastal has benefited financially from the success of its athletic teams, particularly the football team’s breakout 2020 season that ended with an 11-1 record and No. 14 ranking in the AP Top 25 Poll.
The Chanticleer Athletic Foundation exceeded $1 million in member donations for the first time ever for the 2020-21 fiscal year, which ended June 30, according to CAF Executive Director Kelly Moore.
The CAF, a nonprofit that supports CCU athletics, set a member donation record for the second straight year with $1.015 million after collecting $852,000 from members in 2019-20.
The membership figure includes dues, donations made to the impact fund, and a portion of payments made for season tickets, premium seating and parking.
Moore said CAF’s annual athletics gala, the largest single fundraiser for the foundation, raised a record $234,000 on May 22 at the Grande Dunes Marriott.
Additional outright cash gifts, pledges and planned gifts brought overall CAF fundraising in the 2020-21 fiscal year to $2.565 million, which is an increase of more than $800,000 over the previous year.
The increases come despite limited attendance at home sporting events in 2020-21 because of COVID-19.
“All of our numbers are trending upward from last year, so we’re excited about that news,” Moore said. “. . . The success of our sports, under the leadership of [athletic director] Matt Hogue, has helped us to be able to knock on those doors and ask for gifts.”
CCU finished third in the 2020-21 Sun Belt Conference Commissioner’s Cup competition for overall athletic performance behind South Alabama and Louisiana. It matches CCU’s highest finish in four years in the conference. The Chants have been in the top five every year.
Hitting a new enrollment mark
After three straight years of declining or stagnant freshman enrollment, Coastal expects to set a new high for the number of incoming freshmen in the fall semester, which begins Wednesday, Aug. 18.
A total of 2,685 freshmen have made enrollment deposits, which is 21% more than early August last year, and nearly 2,500 have registered for classes, which is a 21.7% increase over this time last year.
Based on those numbers, CCU Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Amanda Craddock expects the actual number of freshmen who arrive on campus for classes to be close to 2,500, which would be a school record. The school’s largest fall freshmen class to date is 2,319 in 2017.
The registered freshmen push the current total enrollment at CCU to 10,090, which is an increase of 2.1% over early August 2020. The school’s all-time high enrollment is about 10,600 students.
Coastal also expects to set a high for at least the past six years with a 74% retention of freshmen from the fall of 2020, totaling more than 1,500 rising sophomores. The average retention for the past six years was approximately 70%. “They’re committed, they want to be here, so that’s always good,” Craddock said.
Transfer deposits and registrants are up 15.2% and 12.9%, respectively, over 2020-21 numbers as well.
“It’s encouraging, especially after last year when there were concerns about where we were going to end, and to see the strong number of new students coming in, especially since last year’s class was so small,” Craddock said.
Though the incoming freshmen numbers are up, the school would like to attract more in-state high school students to keep the school’s balance at about 50% in- and out-of-state enrollees.
While out-of-state freshmen deposits have increased 29% to 1,585, deposits from South Carolina freshmen increased a milder 11.4% to 1,087. It marks the fourth straight year Coastal has received more out-of-state deposits, and the disparity has increased each year.
“All the indicators are very positive that we’re rebounding from our enrollment decrease last year due to COVID,” Craddock said. “. . . We knew continuing undergrad [students] would be lower than previous years because of the enrollment decrease we had in 2020, and we also had a slight decrease in 2019, so we knew we had smaller classes to work with, which is why it was so critical to bring in more new students in the freshmen and transfer areas this year.”
