What College Enrollment Looks Like Now - Insights from Mrs. Dixon

In this episode of Hoplite Radio, Ridgeview Classical Schools welcomes longtime college advisor Mrs. Dixon, who reflects on her 11 years guiding students through the ever-changing college admissions landscape. Mr. Anderson and Mrs. Dixon discuss how college advising has evolved—from the growing complexity of admissions and rising tuition costs to shifting student priorities and the role of values in higher education. Mrs. Dixon shares insights on helping students find the right college “fit,” balancing academics with self-discovery, and preparing for life after graduation. A must-listen for parents and students navigating today’s college admissions process and seeking practical, classical wisdom for the modern world.

00:06:00 - How College Admissions Has Changed
00:12:30 - The Changing Value Proposition of College
00:21:00 - Why Ridgeview Students Succeed in College

Read The Transcript:

00:00:00 [INTRO MUSIC]

00:00:14 Mr. Anderson

Hello and welcome to Hoplite Radio, an educational podcast by Ridgeview Classical

Schools which explores the importance of classical education in a modern era.

Today I am joined by Mrs. Ann Dixon, our college advisor. She's been with us for 11 years,

which is an impressive stint in that role. And she is preparing to retire, unfortunately for us,

probably very fortunate for her. And I wanted to be sure that we had an opportunity to get

her on the record on a podcast before she departed because I think a lot of parents come

to the college advising experience or the prospects of sending their child to college with a

lot of trepidation. And I think Mrs. Dixon has done a stunning job of trying to put them at

ease and guiding students through making prudent and informed choices about where

they're going to spend the next four, six or eight years of their educational careers. So thank

you Mrs. Dixon for agreeing to do a podcast with us today.

00:01:23 Mrs. Dixon

It's great to be here, thank you.

00:01:24 Mr. Anderson

Maybe talk to us a little bit about your background. How did you come to be at Ridgeview

and come to choose college advising as a career?

00:01:33 Mrs. Dixon

So I, well, backing way up, I'm from the Midwest from Indiana and Iowa, and I attended

college where I studied history at Carlton College in Minnesota. And then later on I

completed two different master's degrees at Harvard and at CU Denver. And over the

decades I've divided my career kind of between the fields of education and land planning.

So I worked at my college after graduation and then I worked at the Joyce Foundation in

Chicago on education funding and school funding, higher education and secondary school

funding issues. Then in grad school, like sort of pivoted to land planning and policy. I

worked in that field for a number of years, but I also taught college classes during that time.

We returned to Colorado in 2009, so 16 years ago. And I kind of renewed my interest in

college admissions and I found myself assisting the friends of my own children in their

college planning and application. And I learned about Ridgeview from our previous head of

college advising. Eventually I began assisting her in the college advising program here. I

also completed a college counseling certificate from UCLA. And I just generally found

Ridgeview to be a great fit, so I'm now in my eleventh year here.

00:03:05 Mr. Anderson

Very nice. And so, you took over this position…I was thinking the other day, how many

people we have had in the college advising position. And I think the number probably, it

depends how seriously we were consolidating it into a single individual in a single office.

But probably four or five individuals, the one that preceded you, Paula Petterson, was

probably the first who really consolidated almost everything under her. And really started to

look at how do we professionalize our college advising. Is that kind of your impression of its

development at Ridgeview?

00:03:42 Mrs. Dixon

Absolutely, and I was so fortunate to come into a very active and well-developed program

and get so many helpful ideas from Paula while we overlapped.

00:03:54 Mr. Anderson

Yeah, and she was a remarkable teacher and she did a great job as well in the college

advising role. I think we were fortunate to have had her. That said, even the role has

changed within Ridgeview specifically. But college advising as an activity has changed a lot

over the last at least 20 years. In what ways have you seen that change over the course of

your career?

00:04:22 Mrs. Dixon

Okay, I would say in really broad terms, in the US we're blessed with sort of the most

diverse and dynamic set of higher education options in the world. And that also comes with

a lot of complexity. And so I think what has happened is that that complexity has sort of

continued to grow so that students now need to sort through number one kind of this

opaque admissions process in the US. It makes it hard to predict where they'll be admitted.

They need to get a good understanding of the many kinds of colleges that are out there.

And they also need to understand the cost of college and how much they're going to pay.

And so I think in the past 15, 20 years each of those big categories has gotten more

complex. And yet I think that the fundamentals of how one goes about a college search and

ow one should think about selecting a college and planning their future, those

fundamentals haven't really changed. And so, working within that system, I think college

advising has just become very important for high schoolers. And their parents in terms of

planning for the future. And there are newer developments such as net price calculators

that when I first started here 10, 11 years ago were brand new.

Now they've gotten a bit more sophisticated. So,  advising families on planning for college

costs has gotten more important.

And then within Ridgeview, I guess I would say in terms of what I do here. I've expanded my

role here to also include standardized test coordination and AP testing coordination and

SAT prep. So, I'm kind of more closely integrating some of the testing with college advising

work. And we've already talked about the strong college advising program that we already

had. And so other changes that have occurred here in the past 10 or 11 years have really

tended to more closely reflect just these big changes in the world of college admissions.

So new ways of recruiting and admitting students optional testing, optional standardized

testing and what that means for our kids and changing student demographics in the college

world.

00:07:01 Mr. Anderson

Okay. Yeah. And one of the things that I tell parents will ask me, where do kids go to

college?

What programs are they interested in?

And how have I seen that change over time?

And I'm kind of curious whether our impression is aligned. My impression, going back to

2007 and forward from there is early on, a lot of kids were very interested in going to Ivy

League schools. They were looking at the prestige of the brand, frankly. And now what I see

is talented students who probably could, you know, they have the grades for it, they have

the intellect for it. They would certainly be competitive where they applying to those

schools, but they are so much more financially astute than the earlier students were.

The earlier students were willing to take on debt and exchange for prestige. These students

seem to me less willing to take on debt because I think the shine has kind of come off a lot

of these brands. I think unfortunately in America, a lot of the the IVs, they've involved

themselves in political adventures or misadventures, I guess, depending on one's

perspective. And students are like, you know, listen, I need, I feel like they're going less for

an education and more for a certificate.

And social experience.

I think they see it less as they're going to get a grand education. They think it's, I'm going to

get a certificate and this is what you're supposed to do with this four years of your life.

Are kids approaching college differently? Have you seen that or is that something that

they're telling me but they're not telling you?

00:08:45 Mrs. Dixon

I think that there is much more of a focus on sort of direct job readiness and looking for

schools where they will be able to gain that in their in their college planning.

As well as a change in the types of majors that students are talking about and you know,

we're seeing more students wanting majors that seem to have a clear career path, a clear

path to a job such as, you know, business and engineering in particular very much growing.

And, you know, I tend to agree as far as the sort of the value proposition of college and what

that means to families has… continues to change. And part of that has to do with this high

cost, high discount model of college pricing that has been in place for decades.

But it has, as costs have risen, it has only become more difficult for students and families

to kind of make that match work. And when I talk about high tuition, high discount, I mean

that, you know, the price of college, the sticker price, you know, can come across as just

ridiculously high.

And most people do not end up paying that cost. And so, there is high discounting based on

either merit or financial need of the family or some combination of that.

But as costs have continued to increase, making sense of that model has become difficult

for families.

00:10:35 Mr. Anderson

Have the…how have you seen just the college admissions departments change? Because

you hear a lot from, you know, you read things in the news, but you also hear from seniors

and juniors looking at colleges.

And they'll say, oh, well, you know, you don't even know whether or not anyone's reading

the letters of recommendation or the essay portion of the SAT doesn't matter.

They… everyone is saying a lot of different things as to what the work is of a college

admissions office. What are they looking for?

Or is it just scatter shot, depending on which admissions office we have to be talking

about?

00:11:14 Mrs. Dixon

Well, I think that most colleges will say that their review of applicants is a holistic review.

And so, they all sort of dodge that question of, “what actually gets students in?” because

they will, they will say that they are looking the most important things they're looking for are

academic rigor of course selection and grades.

But they're also looking at this whole raft of other things, including test scores if the

students submits them letters of recommendation, the students list of activities, the

students’ personal essay or essays.

So, it's hard to put their finger on exactly what it is that gets them in or if it's that

whole package.

And then I believe in many of the either smaller colleges that have the time to deal with with

that level of complexity and in an application or the the most highly selective colleges that

is the case, more and more colleges that are less selective and larger.

Often publicly funded schools that are less selective will tell students that there is sort of a

set of things that they are looking for with respect to their grades.

And if the student can meet that and the range of classes that they're looking for, the

student is pretty much guaranteed admission.

But there's been this kind of bifurcation of the higher education landscape where the the

famous schools, the really selective and high profile schools have become more and more

selective and get more and more applications every year.

While the great body of educational institutions in the US are not extremely selective, they

accept the majority of their applicants and it is easier to predict who's going to get in.

00:13:25 Mr. Anderson

They do get in though, usually to schools that top their lists. And I think that they report that

they are more than adequately prepared to do well there. So that's not a boast, which I

realize that's how it could be interpreted. But… and it's not a boast because there are other

challenges.

Ridgeview’s intimacy of instruction, which is a thing that we brag a lot about does rely on us

being a smaller school. And obviously when they get to university, they find out they move

from a situation which they had 20 or 30 classmates in their class size to a situation in

which there's thousands of people from all over the place. And that's an excellent aspect of

the university and a lot of respects.

But I think that they almost get lost in it. And they start to worry and panic that they've

effectively moved from the seminar table to the lecture hall.

And they can't figure out how to find their tribe.

And so, in the first few months, they come back and they almost want to recreate the

conversations here.

And that's tough because we send them back, of course, at say, you know, you've

graduated, you have to go back, you have to create the community that we built for you

here. I mean, we did it this time. Now it's up to you to do it.

And that transition proves daunting and it proves challenging. But I think that everyone who

attends college is going to have some kind of settling in period.

So it's an adjustment. But within a year or so, almost all of these kids who've graduated

have taken the skills that we taught them here.

They've applied them there and they either find or make new communities.

Additionally, I think it's that the students are more pragmatic than we were generations ago

about the costs of college.

And the fear is about carrying debt into their 30s from university and what the returns on

investments in a given degree program promises. So it's effectively impossible to pay for

college while one's attending college, which is a shame.

It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

And the universities have increased their tuition faster than anyone could possibly earn the

money to pay for it. So they are fleecing the sheep faster than the sheep can grow fleece.

And students have to come into this prudently and with an intelligent plan.

00:15:53 Mrs. Dixon

Right. I brought some numbers about that. So, this is from an article that I just happened to

come across earlier this week. If you put everything in 2024 dollars, then for private, the  

average private college tuition and fees in 1980 would be about $14,000 in 2024 dollars

compared to what it really was in 2024 for private college tuition and fees about $43,000.

Same thing for publics. Public college tuition and fees in 2024 was about on average across

the country was about $12,000.

If you look at 1980, those tuition and fees brought up to $20,000, $24,000, about $3,000.

So indeed, it is a bigger chunk of a family's income than it used to be. So for a huge variety

of reasons.

00:17:06 Mr. Anderson

Yeah. And I think parents are asking, what do we get for that?

And I wonder whether there isn't a corollary, for instance, I think K-12 education changed

dramatically in '21. Because parents for the first time, because of all the video and zooming

and everything else, had a hard first look inside of the classrooms that they had been

sending their children to for decades. And what they realized was that a great ideological

machine was at work.

In many cases, undermining their parental values, parental authority, and a lot of them

pulled back and opted out. They put their children at charter schools that they could have

what they felt was a more direct control over, or they homeschooled, or they sent them to

parochials or religious schools. I wonder whether something like that has happened or is

coming, because I can remember back in the 90s, David Horowitz, went through and

basically looked at the voter registrations for the professorial staff at hundreds of

universities. There is, at least if you take that as an indication of intellectual diversity, there

is, and they've used the 10-year system to make it for an absolute dearth of intellectual

diversity, it is so lot-sided as to not really be able to be taken seriously. Do parents push

back on that ever with you? Do they say, "You know, I worry about where I'm sending my

child for fear that the things that we've tried to instill in them will simply be undone by the

people who are paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for?"

00:18:54 Mrs. Dixon

Yes, and of course there are schools that they can then seek that kind of place a premium

on getting away from that trend toward much more liberal faculty. And so we talk about

that. I sort of tend to find that parents seem to fall into three camps. One is just general

expectation, my child is going to go to college, and that is what I want for them, and I will

help them find the best fit for them.

A second is that type of parent that is concerned about those sorts of changes in college

faculties, and so then we talk about options that would be a good fit.

And then a third is the parent that questions that value proposition of college and wants to

support their student whether they go to college or not, and maybe doesn't expect that they

will go to college. And so, in general, I sort of figure, all right, our job is to do our very best to

prepare that student to do whatever it is that makes sense for them.

00:20:15 Mr. Anderson

I mean, that's a great way of putting it, right? That there are these three, you know,

obviously somewhat broad-brush strokes, but there are these three types of parents.

Do you feel that Ridge, and I think you encapsulated it great right at the end, which is we

don't know what they want to do, like when they're freshmen, for instance, we don't know

what they want to do. And so, we have to be in a position where we're preparing them well

for whatever they might want to do.

In general, do you think that Ridgeview does a good job of preparing students to do well at

university?

00:20:48 Mrs. Dixon

I think so. I think that, you know, I've found that, first of all as far as getting in, and we can

back up at some point and sort of talk about how we look at expectations about getting in

and what colleges make sense for a student going a few years back into high school.

But every year, I think we find this our seniors, any every senior who decides to apply to

college gains acceptance to one or more colleges that they will be happy to attend.

And in general, I think that our students do settle in pretty well, and we find that they do

stay at college at rates that are equivalent to or above those in the general population, and

they find their programs and finish in good time.

00:21:48 Mr. Anderson

Good. And so, what is it about what we're doing in terms of preparing them that you think

has been most beneficial?

00:21:56 Mrs. Dixon

I think that there are a few things. One, you know, number one, I guess I would be sort of

instilling these habits of hard work and discipline and an expectation that we can do hard

things around here, and we will go ahead and face them, and we can succeed at doing hard

things.

That I think is number one, number two is just fantastic preparation in terms of reading and

writing well and being getting great practice in speaking publicly and in speaking in various

types of settings, but also analysis in terms of mathematics and social science and

science.

So, kind of focusing on the core academic subjects and making sure that students do more

than the required number of courses in rigorous core academic subjects.

So, I think I think those things are the most important.

00:23:08 Mr. Anderson

Okay, and I think I would agree that seems to be what I hear back from the universities or

professors at these universities where our students have attended is that they're impressed

with their level of preparation.

Do we, you know, there is obviously a minority of Ridgeview graduates and parents that

want for their children to either go into the military or the trades and for them not to go to

college.

Do you think that radio is set up in such a way that it pressures students to apply to college

or do you think it's agnostic? You know, does it, it says if you want to go to college, we are

here to help you do that in the best and smooth this way we can possibly make it.

But if you don't and you want to do something else, we'll attempt to help facilitate that for

you as well.

00:24:00 Mrs. Dixon

I think so, I hope so, you know, because as you mentioned, you know, in recent years we've

had some students join the military.

We've had students get jobs right out of high school.

We've had students go into more trade oriented technical programs such as welding and

automotive repair, that sort of thing.

So, I think, I think that we are preparing them to go into whatever they want to and that they

don't feel undue pressure. At the same time, in the senior year, I think students are

surrounded by, you know, we find that 85 to 90% of our students do plan to go directly into

a two- or four-year program.

And so, they are in that kind of mix of people that is generally planning to attend college.

And I think many of our students who do go into two-year programs do eventually transfer

to a four-year college for a bachelor's degree.

So, I think it's a mix. I haven't heard that students feel pressured to apply to college if that's

not in the cards for them.

00:25:17 Mr. Anderson

And then do you think that I think on the other end of that spectrum or parents or maybe

students who are very ambitious for their children and maybe have unrealistic goals, you

know, based on their test scores or their grades or other things…. or finances. How do you

counsel someone who's, you know, who may be overreaching?

00:25:43

Well, first of all, I do try to let really students and parents know I have I have parent

meetings available for parents with when their students are between eighth grade and 12th

grade at various times throughout the year. And I do let make sure that parents understand

how we talked a while back about how there's kind of been this bifurcation in college

admissions where. The highest profile colleges are getting more and more applications and

and are becoming more and more selective.

And so, for example, Duke University last year accepted seven percent of their applicants.

In 1984, they accepted almost half their applicants.

In 2004, they accepted 22% of applicants. So maybe around the time the parents were in

college, you know, Duke was quite selective, but they accepted more than seven percent.

Boston University 20 years ago, they accepted almost half of applicants.

Now this past year, they accepted 11% and so I try to help people put in perspective the

fact that what might have made sense given a student's academic record when the parents

were coming out of high school, maybe is kind of more of a lottery now.

It's much less assured. So, trying sort of trying to instill a sense of the fact that the world

has changed.

But also, I think the most important thing to talk about is just the concept of fit for college

that you are looking for a college that is a good fit.

And what does that mean for a student and that means a college that has programs that

are strong in the areas that the students interested in.

A college that has a culture where the student will be happy.

And a college that is affordable to the family. And so that concept of fit is so much more

important than rankings or, you know, where your great uncle went or anything else.

And that what you really what really makes sense during the years leading up to high school

graduation is to, you know, consider colleges and think about what makes a good fit for me.

00:28:31 Mr. Anderson

You know, I think that's a, I think that's wise. Because I think I look back at some of the ways

that I chose which colleges I chose and I think I wouldn't make those decisions again today.

So, you talked about you meet with these students as early as eighth grade and that's

terrifying to me because I have a tenth grader.

And I think, oh my gosh, this is getting so much closer.

What should students be thinking about as they are working their way through high school

in terms of college? Because I've watched my own child go through in your way of some of

them with her. All sorts of crazy notions about where she thinks she wants to go and why

she wants to go certain places.

And some of her, you know, rationale is reasonable and others, other aspects of it are

somewhat, you know, maybe I wouldn't say overly ambitious, but kind of.

They aren't the things that a person should probably be focusing on selecting a college.

So, what should students be thinking about as they're contemplating this through their high

school career?

00:29:41 Mrs. Dixon

So, I think, you know, students end up having many different reasons for wanting to go to

college. So, to some extent is career related skills. For some people it's maximizing their

income potential.

Some people want to go to college to explore their interests before they choose a career.

Other people focus on developing their critical thinking skills that kind of give them a

broader view of the world.

And so, I think during those high school year students can kind of be thinking about these

things, kind of thinking about what are the motivations that they have for going to college.

And how that should affect their choices about college, whether they go, where they go,

and what they want to do in the future.

And so, I think what they can be doing is learning about careers in majors.

They can be exploring their own personal strengths and weaknesses and preferences.

And just working on gaining self-knowledge about their own goals. And so, I try to talk to

ninth and tenth graders about those things in an assembly and after Christmas so that it's

kind of on their radar when they're choosing their courses for the next academic year.

I also try to let them know that the main focus in high school should be being a high

schooler. And focusing too much on college planning can kind of steal their joy in being a

high schooler. And that the best way to prepare yourself for applying to college is to get the

most you can out of both the classes you do in high school.

But also finding your passions and interests and figuring out what you want to focus on

outside of your class time. And if you do those things that will put you in pretty good shape

as far as getting things together when it's time to apply.

00:32:00 Mr. Anderson

Yeah, I mean this is one of the things that I tell students is don't forget that this four years

isn't just preparation for college, but this four years is a part of your life. Like if you neglect

this at your peril.

00:32:12 Mrs. Dixon

Right, exactly.

00:32:14 Mr. Anderson

What about parents and the anxiety that they feel about this whole thing? Because I think I,

you know, as a parent I have tremendous sort of anxiety about my child's future, anxiety

about financial implications to myself, to her about what her earning potential might be.

Do you find yourself doing it? Because you don't have a couch in your office. A lot of

counseling of parents and trying to alleviate some of their anxiety?

00:32:47 Mrs. Dixon

So yeah, I mean, here's some things that I try to communicate to parents, especially sort of

in the, I don't know, kind of early to mid-high school time.

One way of thinking about planning for college for your student is that you can imagine sort

of three overlapping spheres in terms of college fit.

The academic sphere, the college culture sphere and the financial sphere. And I kind of

suggest to parents that it makes sense that your student should be the person taking the

lead in planning for the academic and the college culture spheres of their college search.

However, teenagers do not have the knowledge or the life experience to evaluate the

financial part of college and that parents do need to take the lead.

For the financial planning of college and also kind of for better or worse, our financial

system considers college cost to be a family responsibility.

So, their students will benefit when their parents can begin talking to them about college

costs, whether or not the family will be able to help the student with college costs and what

a reasonable budget could be.

So that's kind of one way to think about that.

A second, and this is more on the financial side, there are fairly good tools available for

estimating the cost of a particular college for a particular family.

And so, I do talk to parents about net price calculators that are on all college websites and

the fact that they should start doing those fairly early so that they can begin to get a sense

of what types of schools could possibly make sense.

Because then they can talk to their student with some knowledge about what schools

might make sense to put on the list, what might not make sense to put on the list.

And that can help as their kind of midway through high school.

Um, Let's see. In terms of information for parents, I also, as you mentioned, I provide

informational meetings for parents- 8th through 10th grade, I provide one meeting a year,

11th grade, I provide an evening meeting and 12th grade, I provide an evening meeting.

So, I think it's good for parents if they can to attend, at least one of those 8th through 10th

grade meetings and then attend the meetings when their student is a junior and a senior.

Because their concerns and questions change over time and I try to address different

issues during those different meetings.

So hopefully that's another way that I can kind of get some of their questions out and share

that with other parents as well.

And then again, you know, talking to them about what makes a good fit college and it

doesn't have much to do with rankings.

And it has a lot to do with their particular student and what makes sense for that student.

00:36:26 Mr. Anderson

Well, you know, in wrapping things up, you know, I think as I began, you know, I think you've

done an excellent job in this role. I think you've put a lot of parents at ease. I think you've

been, you know, a good sounding board for students when they've come to you with wild

ideas and prudent ideas and all everything in between. And when you think about your

position being filled by someone else because maybe potentially a candidate for this

position will be listened to this podcast, what is your ideal version of your replacement look

like?

00:37:03 Mr. Dixon

You know, I think I find so much about the the college process quite fascinating even

though a lot of, we've talked about several vexing challenges in the higher education

landscape and yet it's, it's a fascinating process.

And I think a real curiosity about about the high school to college transition and how

colleges operate and what the differences are between colleges and what kinds of

experiences make sense for very different students.

And it's just a curiosity about that and an interest in learning as much as possible about

that and about how things change over time is probably the foundation and an interest in

the individual students and getting to know those students and helping them one by one.

I think are the most important things.

00:38:02 Mr. Anderson

All right.

Well, Mrs. Dixon, thank you very much for agreeing to do a podcast with us.

00:38:08 Mrs. Dixon

This was fun. Thank you.

00:38:18 Mr. Anderson

I'm glad it wasn't intimidating or irritating or anything else.

And for the audience, thank you for listening to Hoplite radio.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or

your preferred listening app.

For more information about Ridgeview Classical Schools, please visit our website at Ridgeviewclassical.org

00:38:36

[CLOSING MUSIC]