Author: Lindsey Downs

**Editors note: A previous version of this post included a section with references to a news release and two news articles, on the University System of New Hampshire and a previously proposed plan to combine with additional institutions. The state did not move forward with that plan and there are no related plans being discussed now. We regret that this incorrect information was included in our article and have republished this post with the section removed. Thank you.

Lindsey Downs, Editor, WCET Frontiers.

Welcome to the second post in our series on higher education enrollment shifts. In our first post, the WCET Steering Committee work group focusing on this area reviewed historical enrollment trends, changes in student markets, and what may be coming in the future. The work group joins us today to discuss the ways higher education institutions are responding to the shifts in enrollment.

Thank you to our authors today for sharing on this important topic.

Enjoy the read,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the trend, declining enrollments have been negatively impacting institutional budgets for nearly a decade. For a deeper look into the reasons why college enrollments are declining, see our earlier post, College Enrollment: Cliffs, Shifts, and Lifts. Higher education institutions are responding to the ensuing financial instability in ways that are both predictable and creative. A surprising selection of colleges and universities are thriving despite the culling of institutions and programs happening around them. Below are some of the most common responses to declining enrollments.

Cutting programs

Some schools have chosen to cut programs as a way to shore up finances. The majority of these programs are deemed low-enrollment and fall within undergraduate humanities: mostly religious studies, philosophy, English, creative writing, languages, history, fine arts, and classics. However, social sciences and natural sciences are not exempt from being cut. Several schools have slated the elimination of sociology, economics, political science, geography, mathematics, environmental studies, and geology. Outside of the liberal arts, programs in risk include business, journalism/communication, education, nursing, and family & consumer sciences. Graduate programs recommended for phasing out largely reflect their undergraduate counterparts; while certificate programs being cut often are tied to specific skills and careers such as health studies, criminal justice, gerontology, speech and communication disorders, and hospitality management.

Here is a short list of news reports about a selection of institutions that went through program cuts:

• Marymount University,
• University of Kansas,
• Emporia State University in Kansas,
• University of Alaska,
• Missouri Western State University,
• Eastern Kentucky University,
• Henderson State University in Arkansas,
• University of Vermont.

Cutting Personnel

With payroll comprising the bulk of most institutional budgets, it is no surprise that many colleges and universities are looking to cut personnel to maintain financial solvency. Clark College in Washington is planning to eliminate positions in counseling, emergency management, and building services. According to the Tampa Bay Times, St. Leo University in Florida, “will close eight of its 14 education centers located in five states over the next six months, eliminate 111 faculty and staff positions, end three-degree programs and some course offerings, and discontinue six of its 23 NCAA Division II sports teams. The university said 27% of the faculty and staff positions were already vacant.” In December 2022, Catawba Valley Community College in North Carolina laid off 21 staff and six faculty members. In March 2023, Penn State leadership asked all departments to submit positions for elimination. More recently, in April 2023, the oldest HBCU in Georgia, Savannah State University, cut 23 positions and froze all open positions. The Connecticut State University System announced they would have to eliminate 650 faculty and staff positions if state funding for the system is approved as is. Other schools including Colorado University Denver, University System of Georgia, Millikin University, and Bemidji State University are also preparing for layoffs.

Institutional Closings

The majority of school closings are for-profit institutions, but nonprofits, rural colleges, and small liberal arts colleges are most at risk for closure.

The Washington Post reported in April on the decline of rural higher education, listing the following nonprofit universities and colleges that have closed or announced their closings in the last three years: including Chatfield College in Ohio, MacMurray College in Illinois, Nebraska Christian College, Marlboro College in Vermont, Holy Family College in Wisconsin, Judson College in Alabama, Ohio Valley University in West Virginia, Lincoln College in Illinois, Marymount California University, Cazenovia College in New York, Finlandia University in Michigan, and Presentation College in South Dakota.

Best Colleges has been tracking college closures since 2020. They listed 20 small public and private non-profit schools that closed or announced closures. In addition to the Washington Post list, the Best Colleges list includes St. John’s University on Staten Island, American University of Puerto Rico, Bloomfield College in New Jersey, Cardinal Stritch University in Wisconsin, Holy Names University in California, Quest College in Texas, San Francisco Art Institute, Wave Leadership College in Virginia, Vista College in Texas, Becker College in Massachusetts, Independence University in Utah, Judson College in Alabama, Holy Family College in Wisconsin, and Urbana University in Ohio.

Institutional Mergers/Consolidation

On April 1, 2023, two small, liberal arts colleges in western Massachusetts, Williams, and Amherst, announced a merger. While the announcement was later revealed to be an April Fool’s joke, a merger between the schools was not unthinkable in the current climate. While schools merging makes sense financially, mergers are not popular with alumni who want their schools to maintain their particular identity, or administrators who don’t want to risk upsetting alumni or be remembered as the ones who fundamentally changed the institution. Despite the hesitation, there have been some notable mergers and system consolidations in the past decade.

In 2021, Delaware State University acquired Wesley College: a private liberal arts college in Dover, Delaware. Wesley College is now DSU’s downtown campus. DSU has grown its enrollments over the last five years and recently reported its largest enrollment: 6,200 students, which is close to its 7,500 goal by 2026.

Northeastern University added Mills College in Oakland, California to its Global University System in 2022. Mills College was a small, private institution for women that had been experiencing financial difficulties, and was considering transitioning to a research institute before the merger with Northeastern.

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education created two regional institutions on July 1, 2022, by merging three universities in western Pennsylvania (California, Clarion, and Edinboro) to create Pennsylvania Western University (PennWest), and three universities in northeastern Pennsylvania (Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, and Mansfield) to create Commonwealth University.

Another merger in Pennsylvania involves a private Jesuit university, St. Joseph’s, and a private health sciences school, the University of the Sciences in 2022. St. Joseph’s acquired the University of the Sciences, located in West Philadelphia’s University City. The arrangement between the two schools dissolves the University of the Sciences and brings all of their programs, students, employees, and facilities under the St. Joseph’s University brand.

Connecticut’s twelve community colleges are being consolidated into a single institution, Connecticut State Community College (CT State). According to the institution’s merger webpage FAQs, “The main drivers for the consolidation are closing the opportunity gap, improving student success rates and reorganizing our community colleges into a financially sustainable position, such that it is well positioned to continue to serve students for many years to come.”

The story is not all gloom and doom, however. There are many examples of institutions being creative to save money and expand enrollments without making cuts or formally merging with other institutions. What follows are strategies employed by these institutions.

Resource Sharing

Otterbein University and Antioch University announced in 2022 a plan, to partner in providing graduate and adult education programs. Although the two institutions will share the costs and governance of these programs, they will retain institutional independence and branding.

Also in 2022, The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) unveiled the HBCU-MSI Course-Sharing Consortium, which allows these institutions to share online courses. Credit for these consortium courses will remain with the home institution. There are 24 participating institutions including Central State University in Ohio, Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, Heritage University on Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington, Southeast Arkansas College, Stillman College in Alabama, Texas Southern University, Tuskegee University in Alabama, University of the Virgin Islands, and Virginia State University.

Adrian University in rural Michigan is keeping students local with course sharing arrangements with multiple other institutions that offer courses and majors because Adrian does not.

Finally, the League for Innovation Online Course Sharing Consortium allows students at its member institutions to take online courses at other institutions, to support progress and completion without having to enroll in the partner institution or cede course credit at their home institution. Hundreds of community colleges are already members of the League and the goal of the non-profit is to expand course-sharing benefits across the United States and even to international institutions.

Expanding Online Offerings

With online courses providing a cost-saving solution for institutions, some have chosen to expand their existing online offerings. Colorado’s Rural College Consortium allows students at the state’s seven community colleges to share programs and services.

The state is investing millions of dollars into supporting the consortium in building out online offerings and infrastructure. Boston University has had online course offerings for two decades, but recently decided to expand graduate and professional programs through a newly branded expansion called BU Virtual. St. Cloud State University in Minnesota is also expanding graduate degree programs online in the College of Education and Learning Design to reach working professionals. In Missouri, Delta College is adding 17 new programs at the associates and certificate level and William Woods University announced the establishment of William Woods Global to “expand higher ed opportunities for working adults.”

New Admissions Strategies

Some schools have found success doubling down on gaining new enrollments of high school graduates, and even current high school students. Dual enrollment programs allow high school students to satisfy both high school graduation requirements and collegiate general education requirements while still in high school. These programs set up a direct pathway for high school students to enroll in a college or university they already have a relationship with. Test-optional admission existed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2021, hundreds of institutions suspended the SAT and ACT requirement for applicants. Those schools that have retained test-optional admissions, are finding that they are getting a more diverse applicant pool of students. Early admission is a strategy used by schools hoping to lock in student enrollment months ahead of the spring scramble to make a viable class. A newer strategy is direct admission, which bypasses the application process altogether. According to reporting by The Washington Times, “The process allows officials to review the electronic profiles of high school students and reach out to ideal matches with scholarship offers rather than wait for applications.”Finally, some schools are leaning into their institutional identity and recruiting students with a similar identity. Spelman College, an HBCU in Atlanta, has begun actively recruiting students outside of the continental U.S., but who share an African diaspora heritage.

Additional Funding

In 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) provided $14 billion to U.S. colleges and universities through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). That funding helped higher education institutions to keep their doors open during the COVID-19 lockdown but will be suspended in May 2023.

To offset the rise of higher education deserts, the United States Department of Agriculture has been loaning tens of millions of dollars to rural colleges and universities. Of the six institutions that verified USDA loans, five are private and religiously affiliated: Thiel College in Pennsylvania, Carson-Newman University in Tennessee, Muskingum University in Ohio, Dordt University in Iowa, and Iowa Wesleyan University.

Poaching Students/Offering Safe Haven to Students

Hampshire College was on the verge of closing without a viable merger option back in 2019 until alumni kicked in $33 million to save the school. An article in Inside Higher Ed reported that Hampshire College has offered admission and matching tuition to students at Florida’s New College, who are considering transferring due to state political interference in the school’s administration. This kind of poaching, once considered unethical by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, is now fair game under the organization’s revised Code of Ethics and Professional Practices.

A month later, Higher Ed Dive reported that the provost of Binghamton University, Donald Hall, published an op-ed in the Miami Herald in response to Florida’s governor’s campaign to strip trans persons of healthcare and other human rights, as well as quashing DEI initiatives at Florida colleges.

“Send us your woke, your trans,” read the headline of Donald Hall’s op-ed in the Miami Herald, in which he proclaimed his college, the public Binghamton University, would aggressively recruit and poach Florida students and faculty amid DeSantis’ campaign to wipe out diversity programs and restrict faculty tenure on state campuses (Bauer-Wolf, 2023).

Many women’s colleges have offered admission to transgender students for a decade or more, but the new wave of anti-trans legislation has prompted these schools to reaffirm their role as a safe haven. Activist and researcher Megan Nanny, Ph.D., tracks the admissions policies of gender-selective colleges on her website, Trans @ HWCs. According to Nanny’s research, most Historically Women’s Colleges (HWCs) admit trans women while also admitting non-binary students who “consistently live and identify as women.”

Thriving Despite Declining Enrollments

It is no surprise that prestige schools with low acceptance rates and high endowments are doing just fine during the downturn in enrollments. But in a surprising twist to this story, there are several non-elite schools that are thriving despite the national trend in declining enrollments.

Non-selective, public flagship institutions have experienced record-high enrollments in recent years. According to the Urban Institute, the 50 state flagships increased their enrollment by 24% between 2010 and 2018. Most of that growth was in the South. Five of the top ten fastest-growing universities include the University of Alabama, the University of Mississippi, the University of Arkansas, West Virginia University, and the University of South Carolina. Two fast-growing flagships are located in the northeast: the University of Connecticut and the University of Rhode Island. Rounding out the top ten are the University of California, Berkeley, the University of South Dakota, and the University of Nevada, Reno. The rise in enrollments can be attributed to several factors including affordability, high acceptance rates, and an expansion in the number of out-of-state students. According to a report by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the boom for flagship institutions is coming at the cost of enrollment declines at state regional institutions. IPEDS data indicate that “In 28 states, enrollment rose at flagships while it dropped at regionals between 2010 and 2021.”

Schools leaning into their identity or their unique approach to education are also thriving. Enrollment in trade profession programs is rising despite the general trend of catastrophic declines in enrollment at community colleges.

According to reporting by National Public Radio, “Across the country, associate’s degree programs in fields like HVAC and automotive repair have seen enrollment numbers swell.”

A recent edition of the Hechinger Report echoed this finding: “Mechanic and repair trade programs saw an enrollment increase of 11.5 percent from spring 2021 to 2022, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Enrollment in construction trades courses increased by 19.3 percent, while culinary program enrollment increased 12.7 percent, according to the Clearinghouse.” Interviews with students in these programs reveal that they are choosing them over the more traditional 4-year degree because they are less expensive, they offer a clear path to a career, and they can begin applying new skills immediately rather than waiting until after graduation.

When taken as an aggregate group, enrollments at religiously-affiliated schools have dropped by 9 percent between 2019 and 2020. However, enrollments in that same period increased by over 12 percent at evangelical colleges. A 2017 article in U.S. News & World Report attributed the enrollment growth of large, Christian colleges to low tuition and a broader selection of courses than at smaller schools.

According to the National Catholic Register, smaller Catholic schools have been experiencing enrollment growth despite the overall decline in enrollments at Roman Catholic schools. Academic leaders at these schools attribute the growth to their schools offering in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as students craving a faith-affirming community and curriculum during times of uncertainty. The Cardinal Newman Society, an advocacy group for Catholic education, recognizes the schools mentioned in the National Catholic Register article as being committed to “a faithful Catholic education” as opposed to Catholic colleges “compromised by ideology, infidelity, and scandal.”

A final category of schools with healthy enrollments according to a Campus Reform report is “Liberal arts institutions that emphasize great texts of the Western tradition and classical education.” These institutions include Hillsdale College in Michigan, Grove City College in Pennsylvania, Liberty University in Virginia, and Thomas Aquinas College in New York. These are all schools that cross-categorize with the evangelical and conservative Catholic schools listed above. What makes this list different is the emphasis on a curriculum grounded in traditional education, and a clear avoidance of programs or courses that might be regarded as promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice.

This month, WCET will be focusing on enrollment trends and the impact those trends will have on higher education.

To kick off the theme, the WCET Steering Committee work group on enrollment joins us for the start of their Frontiers series on enrollment. We hope you enjoy the series and hope you will join us for our themed events happening this month. Thank you to the work group for this excellent series!

Enjoy the read and enjoy your day,

Lindsey Downs, WCET

Hundreds of colleges have closed since 2004, according to tracking by Best Colleges Most closures occurred in 2018, and the overwhelming majority of them (80%) were for-profit schools. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Best Colleges has tracked 39 school closures or mergers. Of these schools, 64 percent (25 schools in total) had enrollments of less than 1,000 students; 23 percent (9 schools in total) had enrollments between 1,000 – 2,000; and the remaining 13 percent (5 schools in total) had enrollments over 2,000. The smaller enrollment schools were more likely to list economic concerns or enrollment issues as the primary reason for their closure or merger. Only two of the larger enrollment schools had unclear and sudden closures, while a third lost its accreditation.

While it is true that the overall enrollment of high school graduates in colleges and universities is dropping, enrollments are also shifting away from small, private institutions and for-profit institutions to larger, public, non-profit schools. There is also a gender and racial demographic shift happening with enrollments. In short, there are fewer college-bound students who are less likely to choose small for-profit schools and these students are more likely than in the past to identify as women and Latino.

Enrollments in U.S. colleges and universities have historically fluctuated, but this current drop in enrollments is not like previous ones. In this blog, we will share with you a historical overview of dips and surges in U.S. enrollment in higher education, and we will outline what makes the current enrollment situation different from previous ones.

How it Started

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), higher education in the U.S. began with a limited vision of who should receive a college education.

“When the federal Office of Education began collecting education data in 1869-70, only 63,000 students were attending higher education institutions throughout the country, which amounted to only about 1 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old population. This small number of students was divided among 563 campuses, giving an average enrollment size of only 112 students. About 21 percent of students were female” (Snyder et. al., 1993, pg. 64).

This NCES data point does not account for race or gender, although a healthy percent of enrollments were women, this should not be interpreted as widespread acceptance of female students on the part of the nation’s most prestigious institutions.

Multiple Enrollment Surges of New Markets of Students

Postsecondary enrollments grew steadily in the post-Civil War era. The majority of students were white men attending both public and private institutions; many of which explicitly barred female and Black students. However, newly established schools catering to these untapped student markets began to change who was able to get a college education in the United States. There were significant gains in the female collegiate population at schools that accepted applications from women, such as Oberlin College in Ohio, and land grant institutions in the Midwest and West that only allowed women to enroll to secure the financial viability of the school (Thorne, 1985). With the establishment of the Seven Sisters, Mount Holyoke College (1837), Vassar College (1861), Smith College (1875), Wellesley College (1875), Bryn Mawr College (1885), Radcliffe College (1879), and Barnard College (1889), white women finally had schools of their own. Schools to train Black students in trades and as educators were established quickly after the end of the Civil War. “The majority of HBCUs originated from 1865-1900, with the greatest number of HBCUs started in 1867, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation: Alabama State University, Barber-Scotia College, Fayetteville State University, Howard University, Johnson C. Smith University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, Saint Augustine’s University and Talladega College.”

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), higher education in the U.S. began with a limited vision of who should receive a college education.

“When the federal Office of Education began collecting education data in 1869-70, only 63,000 students were attending higher education institutions throughout the country, which amounted to only about 1 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old population. This small number of students was divided among 563 campuses, giving an average enrollment size of only 112 students. About 21 percent of students were female” (Snyder et. al., 1993, pg. 64). This NCES data point does not account for race or gender, although a healthy percent of enrollments were women, this should not be interpreted as widespread acceptance of female students on the part of the nation’s most prestigious institutions.

At the turn of the century, the high rate of immigration to the U.S. contributed to steady gains in college enrollment, although only 2% of the population earned a postsecondary degree. Colleges that began offering programs for professional training—such as business, accounting, engineering, and teaching—enjoyed enrollment bumps due to the popularity of these degree programs.

Small Enrollment Dips and Surges

In the 1920s, enrollments dipped for women and slowed for all populations during the years of the Great Depression. In the 1940s, it was men who left or deferred college for military service. This was the first big dip in enrollments during the modern era. However, thanks to the 1944 G.I. Bill, enrollments of white males surged after World War II. After the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, new immigrants and international students bolstered enrollment, even as the nation’s birth rate began to drop. Additionally the 1965 Higher Education Act additionally opened new markets of students by providing a subsidy now known as the Pell Grant: a grant created for low-income students to be able to afford a college education.

The big story in the 1970s was the drop in male college enrollment. In 1969, 33 percent of high school men enrolled in college, but, by 1980, only 26 percent of high school men enrolled. What prevented this enrollment dip from being an enrollment cliff was high school women, whose enrollment in college jumped from 21 percent to 25 percent, and it has only continued to increase (aside from periodic dips through 2005). In fact, in the 1980s, women began to outnumber male students enrolled in college, and today women make up nearly 60 percent of all college enrollments.

The Big Dip

The surge of women in postsecondary education programs in the 1980s led to fewer college age students in the current period. Birth rates have been incrementally falling in the U.S. since the late 1960s, with a slight peak in 2006-2007, followed by a faster decline through 2022. Because women with a college education tend to have fewer children than women without a college education, sociologists suggest that the declining birth rate is due to fewer years in their lifetime when women consider pregnancy.  

Another new market of students opened up around the 2000s, with college programs designed specifically for adult students who held jobs and had children. An important development coinciding with this new market was online education, driven by the development of new schools like Western Governors University and the University of Phoenix, and the expansion of online branches of existing schools like Southern New Hampshire University and the University of Maryland University College (now University of Maryland Global Campus). Currently, 11 percent of postsecondary institutions in the U.S. offer primarily online degrees, and 14 percent of undergraduate students are enrolled in primarily online programs.

How It’s Going – The Impending Enrollment Drop

For 150 years, U.S. colleges and universities have increased college enrollments by:

• expanding who has access to college,
• offering new programs that meet student demands, and,
• offering new ways of attending college.

But the impending drop in enrollment feels different this time. The U.S. birth rate has been declining for fifteen years, and it is lowest in families who can afford to send their children to college without loans. College costs continue to rise, and subsidies continue to shrink, making college unaffordable for low-income and middle-class families. Outside of adults without a college credential, there are few new markets of students to boost the lost enrollments.

College Costs and Public Funding of Higher Education

Although they’ve been rising steadily since the 1970s, tuition and fees skyrocketed in the generation between Gen X attending college and when Gen Z attended college. From 1992 to 2022, tuition and fees rose 80.24 percent at private nonprofit institutions; 124.64 percent at public 4-year institutions; and 64.96 percent at public 2-year institutions. At the same time, state support for public institutions has plummeted.

“Overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges in the 2017 school year (that is, the school year ending in 2017) was nearly $9 billion below its 2008 level, after adjusting for inflation. The funding decline has contributed to higher tuition and reduced quality on campuses as colleges have had to balance budgets by reducing faculty, limiting course offerings, and in some cases closing campuses. At a time when the benefit of a college education has never been greater, state policymakers have made going to college less affordable and less accessible to the students most in need” (Mitchel et. al, 2017). Student debt has been cited as a major reason for low home ownership and higher reliance on government relief programs among college graduates, even 20 years after earning their degree. It is leading high school students and their families to question the value of a college credential.

A 2021 survey of high school students by the ECMC Foundation found that fewer than half were interested in a four-year college degree (down from 71 percent), and 65 percent cited the cost of college as an important factor in their decision to attend college, while 43 percent cited the cost of college as the most important factor in their decision. A more recent survey by Gallup and Lumina Foundation found that “Financial barriers are most frequently identified as very important reasons unenrolled adults are not currently enrolled, including costs of programs (55%), inflation (45%) and the need to work (38%).” (Gallup and Lumina, 2023).

Immigration and international students

Another aspect of the enrollment woes being experienced by many institutions relates to international students and immigration. International students often pay full tuition, making them an attractive market for tuition-driven institutions (versus in-state students who may pay significantly less tuition dollars). However, travel restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant drop in international student enrollment in U.S. schools in the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 academic years.

International student enrollment is making a comeback from the 46 percent drop in the 2020/2021 academic year, but it is still only 87 percent of the number of international students who were enrolled in 2019/2020.

Immigration to the United States also slowed between 2017 – 2021.

“Legal permanent and temporary immigration rose in 2022 after a few years of chill brought about by the COVID-19 public-health crisis and the Trump administration’s restrictive policies and rhetoric. Amid crises around the world, the Biden administration extended or expanded Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for certain eligible immigrants already in the United States and announced special humanitarian parole programs allowing some migrants from several countries to enter the United States and stay temporarily” (Ward & Batolova, 2023).

Why is immigration good for college enrollment?

“Of the 19 million students at U.S. colleges and universities in 2018, 28 percent were either first-generation immigrants or the children of immigrants. Together, these immigrant-origin students play an important role in postsecondary enrollment across the country, accounting for 58 percent of the growth of the student population between 2000 and 2018” (Batalova & Feldblum, 2020).

While institutions may have been able to anticipate enrollment declines among international students and immigrants due to the political climate, they could not have prepared for the greater impact of a global pandemic on their enrollments.

The Perfect Storm

Decreased college enrollment is not simply a matter of falling birthrates shrinking the market of new students: high school graduates who would attend college. The current “enrollment cliff” is the perfect storm of decades of states scaling back funding of public colleges and universities, skyrocketing tuition and fees, a decline in birthrates, a slowing of immigration (which contributed to enrollment rises in the early 1900s and in the 1960s), a global pandemic which added to economic instability, a drop in international students, and young adults questioning the value of a postsecondary degree over the burden of debt.

The changing demographics of college students

Schools preparing to meet the challenges of the decline in high school enrollments, which are expected to peak in 2025, will need to pay attention to changing racial demographics. Among white students, the projected decline is four million; 700,000 among Black students; and 100,000 among Native American/Alaskan Native students. During this same period, there is a projected rise of 3.5 million in high school enrollment for Latino students.

As noted earlier, over the course of the last 150 years, colleges established for young, white men began enrolling students they previously had banned, including women and students of color. Until recently, the expectation of these colleges was that students must adapt to the institution and not the other way around. Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and subsequent amendments have provided recognition and funding for Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions (ANNH), Native American Serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTI), predominantly black institutions (PBI), and Minority Serving Institutions (MSI). Title V provides recognition and funding for Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI). In this way, schools have an incentive to provide programs for specific populations of students for whom the institution was not originally designed. However, the demographic shift of students will require colleges to go much further than special programs and scholarships for historically excluded students, who will make up demographic majorities in the coming years.

The Shift in Student Expectations for Colleges and Universities

The scarcity of students enrolling in post-secondary institutions will create a buyer’s market in which students are able to demand more for their tuition dollars. What do students want from college? In poll after poll, affordability, and career readiness are the top considerations that students have when choosing college (see this poll from the National Student Clearinghouse, or the Princeton Review, or Georgetown University). In fact, according to the article about the results from the National Student Clearinghouse, which took a poll of high school students, 60 percent prefer to enroll in career specific programs versus programs balanced with or focused on a liberal arts education.

According to an Every Learner Everywhere report, students want an education that feels relevant to who they are and what they want from life. The report lists the three main takeaways that encapsulate students’ desire for relevance:

1. Students want to be recognized as individuals and appreciated in the classroom.
2. Students value the connections instructors make between course content and “real life.”
3. Students want to be treated with respect and trust.