The spiraling cost of higher education has led to questions of accountability and cost effectiveness and called more attention to budgetary and financial structures. This shift in decision-making responsibilities is closely tied to recent changes in enrollment growth that has reached a static or declining stage. In view of this trend, administrators must be able to assess enrollment patterns more carefully. This paper covers the following topics of analysis with an example of applications to a large, urban public university: (1) identification of past seasonal, cyclical, and trend variations in enrollment; (2) correlation of cyclical enrollment variation with the business cycle; and (3) use of the information from (1) and (2) to develop a simple regression model to predict short-run variations. The model is even more useful in focusing administrators' attention on the need for policy assumptions in even the most sophisticated, long-range projections. (Author/LBH)