venezuela – Houghton STAR

After two straight years of decline in enrollment, Houghton’s numbers have risen again. “We are back up,” said Eric Currie, Vice President for Enrollment Management.

There are 302 new students this fall, more than a ten percent increase compared to last year’s incoming class of 277. Of those 302 students, 50 are transfers and 26 are international. China, Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, and Venezuela are just a few of the countries represented by the new students at Houghton.

In order to bring numbers up this semester the admissions team, alongside the marketing and the communications offices, thought of new ways to advertise Houghton College. “We started with updating the branding of the college,” said Ryan Spear, Associate Director of Admission. Through things like the “Rethink” campaign, Spear said the admissions team wanted to challenge prospective students to reconsider their education and what it means to them.

In an effort to reach out to prospective students, the admissions team made appearances this summer at events such as Soulfest, Creation, and Kingdom Bound. Also, the addition of new sports teams and the Kerr-Pegula athletic facility assisted in the increase in numbers of enrollment.

Admissions attempted to emphasize the personalization of the application process, to which Currie and Spear attribute the success of incoming new students. Things such as personalized acceptance letters and arranging a perspective’s visitation day in an attempt to accommodate their interests are a few things that “set Houghton apart from other schools,” said Spear.

Even though it is time consuming to personalize so much of the prospective student process, it is certainly worth it to Spear. Prospective students ranked Houghton very high in personal communication. “My acceptance letter was really sweet and personal, it included things from my application and mentioned my recommendations which was cool,” said freshman, Erica Barney.

Admissions counselors helped incoming students to prepare and eager to attend Houghton. Barney said that her admissions counselor was “really sweet and right off the bat and was talking to me about what to look forward to when I came to Houghton.”

It wasn’t always easy getting potential students to enroll though, Currie said economics was the largest struggle this past year. In a survey taken by prospective students, the majority said the greatest barrier of being unable to attend Houghton was finances. Spear said fear of loans and affordability of tuition kept potential students from applying to Houghton.

Now Houghton has a partnership with the Loan Repayment Assistance Program foundation (LRAP) to help out with those financial issues. Spear said that the LRAP serves as a “safety net for students.” This program covers up to 100% of all federal, private, and Parent PLUS loans at no cost to the student or parent. Spear said, “It addresses people’s financial confidence and allows students to pursue their calling right away.”

Admissions is hoping to meet their stretch goal of 315 enrolling new students in the fall of 2015 and is already preparing for next year, Currie said,“We are already in full swing.” Admissions recently ran their first email campaign and have already started to receive applications from prospective students. Spear said admissions staff will continue the personalization that is so well known of the college.

Admissions is reaching out to the largest number of students ever, visiting over 150 college fairs and 225 high schools this fall. Though that is likely to draw in many perspectives, the admissions team is trying not to get ahead of themselves. “We are trying to be realistic on what we can attain,” said Currie.

Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro received special powers from the country’s National Assembly on Tuesday in a bid to tackle corruption and a spiraling economy.

Maduro’s powers, authorized under the Enabling Act, allow him to rule by decree without consulting Venezuela’s Congress for twelve months. According to Reuters, Maduro is already planning on implementing two laws very soon. One will limit businesses’ profit margins from fifteen to thirty percent as part of an “economic offensive” against price-gouging. The other would create a new state body to oversee dollar sales by Venezuela’s currency control board. The laws are a response to a growing demand for hard currency in Venezuela’s black market after the Bolivar fuente, the national currency, hit an inflation rate of 54 percent.

Although a member of the oil cartel OPEC, analysts believe that not even the country’s oil revenues can cushion the blow of years of economic mismanagement. Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, used the Enabling Act to nationalize large portions of Venezuela’s oil industry all in the name of socialism. Under his command, Chávez used the oil revenues to buy votes among the poor with handouts such as refrigerators and reward those who supported his policies. Maduro, as Chávez’s hand-picked successor, has vowed to continue the socialist revolution in Venezuela and punish those he has coined “barbaric… capitalist parasites.” According to the Washington Post, dozens of business owners were arrested after being accused of speculating and hoarding supplies as the country faces severe shortages of basic goods, including bananas and toilet paper. Soon after, Venezuela’s government slashed prices at appliance dealers, auto-mechanic stores and toy shops, prompting a rush on businesses across the country as shoppers hunted for bargains.

Along with fears of further damage to Venezuela’s economy, critics claim that Maduro will also use his special powers to silence critics of his rule in the name of anti-corruption. According to the BBC, Maduro’s powers come just before local elections in the country on December 8 and members of the opposition parties in the National Assembly fear Maduro will target them in order to consolidate his regime’s hold on power. Reuters reports that Maduro’s “war on corruption” has already led to the downfalls of an opposition advisor accused of running a transvestite prostitution ring and an opposition legislator stripped of parliamentary immunity for allegedly mismanaging a state-owned stadium. Maduro’s opponents say that he should be chasing military generals and other senior officials they blame for turning Venezuela into a major supply route for Colombian drugs. But the government denies this is the case, saying that narcotic seizures are on the rise.

Political analyst Luis Vicente León believes that Maduro is trying to follow in Chávez’s footsteps and “demolish the idea that he is weak…. He does this with populist actions that can connect him to the people.” Whether or not Maduro’s special powers will be a benefit to his rule and help him to connect with many poor Venezuelans who supported Chávez. Unlike Chávez, whose fiery, charismatic temper helped him to sustain vast support among Venezuelans despite a bad economy, the less bombastic Maduro has struggled to maintain a fraction of this support.