Every fall, Linda Salchenberger, dean of Marquette University's College of Business Administration (Marquette Undergraduate Business Profile), meets with parents of freshman students to welcome them to the school and gauge their expectations for the years ahead. This year, she stood in front of a group of 400 of them and posed a question she thought would receive a lukewarm response in today's challenging economic climate.

"I asked, 'How many of you are optimistic about the job prospects for your students four years from now,' and I'd say easily three-quarters of them raised their hand," she says.

That was just the first bit of good news Salchenberger received. Enrollment in the freshman class is up 7 percent over last year and the school just welcomed its largest ever freshman, sophomore, and junior classes to campus, she says.