Diversity on Paper, Inequity in Practice

What million‑dollar enrollment strategies say about whose access really counts in higher education

When #HigherEd makes the news, it is rarely for something as technical as Enrollment Management, but this weekend, the New York Times published a pretty compelling article about the Early Decision (ED) practices of University of Chicago, Tulane University and Northeastern University. Satya Dattagupta, Northeastern’s Chief Enrollment Officer, Special Advisor to the President, Executive Vice Chancellor is reportedly pulling down a significant salary for his work. How much? Over a million dollars a year.

The story was boosted by a popular College Admissions Influencer on TikTok and Instagram and the comments were vicious. When the article and the Instagram Reel was shared with me by a friend I responded that Northeastern’s practices were hardly surprising to people working in enrollment and student affairs; as was the impact on Dattagupta’s enrollment efforts at Tulane. As has been reported by Class Action, Northeastern leads the nation in ED admissions with Tulane coming in second.VPs for enrollment are treated like high‑performing sales execs, rewarded for driving up applications, yield, net tuition revenue, and rankings.

Student filling out a college application