‘Losing A Generation’: Fall College Enrollment Plummets For First-Year Students
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Instead of going to college this fall, Brian Williams got a job at a Jimmy John’s near his home in Stafford, Texas. He says paying for college was always going to be hard, but it was even harder to justify the expense during a pandemic.
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Williams graduated from high school last spring. He thought he would go straight to college, but second guessed his plan after getting a taste of distance learning. «I’m terrible at online school, he says.
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Fewer people going to college and getting a degree spells trouble for individual families, for communities and for the U.S. economy as a whole.
«There is a much larger implication here for the country, says Angel Pérez, who oversees the National Association for College Admission Counseling. «The fact is if we lose an entire generation of young people in the pipeline to college, that will have an impact on our tax base. It will have an impact on an educated citizenry.
‘A very bad financial time’
For colleges, lower enrollment means fewer tuition dollars, which translates to a drop in revenue at a time when college budgets were already strained because of the pandemic.
Now, colleges have begun to tighten their belts. In October, Ithaca College, a private college in upstate New York, announced plans to cut about 130 faculty positions to deal with falling enrollment. That’s in addition to pandemic-related cuts the college made in April. Across the country institutions have announced furloughs and layoffs; they’ve cancelled sports, majors and even entire departments. More than 50 universities have suspended admissions to their Ph.D. programs, The Chronicle of Higher Education found.
«To be blunt, we are in a very bad financial time for higher education, and the most unfortunate part is I don’t see that we have sort of reached the bottom yet, says Dominique Baker, a professor of education policy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
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«What determines how bad this eventually gets are things like what is the federal government doing? How much funding does the federal government give out to states? How much funding does the federal government give out to individual higher education institutions to help them? she says. «If we’re not seeing a significant investment in higher education, this is going to become much more widespread.
Without federal or state money, colleges may look to increase tuition to offset budget shortfalls. In Florida, there’s talk of raising tuition at public institutions for the first time in several years.
Even after the pandemic is over, colleges won’t be out of the woods. They’re still facing a demographic cliff: The number of U.S. high school graduates is expected to peak by 2025, buoyed by non-white students, then decline through the end of 2037, according to projections by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. In other words, the pool of eligible college students is shrinking.
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«Historically, when colleges and universities had financial challenges, the answer was always to go to the chief enrollment officer and say, ‘Bring us more students, Pérez explains. «That option no longer exists.
There are two bright spots in the new fall enrollment numbers: There were increases in enrollment at graduate schools — mainly in short-term certificate and masters programs, Shapiro says — and enrollment went up at for-profit colleges, many of which had previous experience with online learning, so were well positioned to take on students during the pandemic.
For-profit colleges have lower graduation rates compared to public colleges, federal data shows. They tend to enroll the same types of students that go to community colleges, though tuition is often much higher. For-profits also spend more on advertising, a factor that may have enticed students uncertain about what college would look like at brick-and-mortar institutions. Baker worries for-profits may have scooped up students who would otherwise have enrolled in community colleges.
«Community colleges do not have the money to market themselves in the way that a for-profit institution does, she says. «They’re just less nimble.
A shock for community colleges
At community colleges, the financial situation is also less fixable. Budgets are already tight, and raising tuition goes against the core of their mission: to be an affordable, open-access institution.
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Fewer Students Are Going To Community College, Despite High Unemployment
«Community colleges are an area of higher education that our country, and often states, have systematically underfunded, Baker says. At the same time, she explains, «they do the lion’s share of educating students in the United States.
Low-income students are more likely to attend community colleges, as are non-white students. Baker says, when community colleges are hurting, it also hurts the students they serve.
«The financial situation, the enrollment situation, this is not an issue that is hitting all students in the same way.
Historically, when unemployment is high, students flock to community colleges. Bill Pink, the president of Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, says that’s what everyone expected to happen this year: ‘Community colleges, you guys are going to clean up. You guys are not going to have room for all these people!’ That is so wrong.
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Riley Borup collects garbage bags at an apartment complex in Lynnwood, Wash. Frustrated by distance learning, Borup dropped out of his engineering program at Everett Community College to take a job as a trash collector.
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Borup plans to return to school this spring, but he says some days he loses faith that he’ll ever get his degree. «It’s definitely like an internal battle.
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There is data to support Cifuentes’ concerns about this year’s seniors. As of Dec. 4, the number of students who had filled out the federal application for student aid, or FAFSA, was down 14% compared to the same time last year. The drop is even more dramatic among low-income and non-white students. Colleges, including the 23 campuses in the California State system, pushed back their application deadlines to allow more students to apply.
For her part, Cifuentes and her staff have been taking to the phones, calling students to help them with their college applications. And she’s not giving up on the class of 2020 either. «I’m really hopeful that students will go back, she says, «it’s not too late.
Brain Williams, who decided to forgo college in Houston and is now working at Jimmy John’s, says he’s «working long hours and saving a lot of money. He’s recently been promoted to manager, and though he’s enjoying the bigger paycheck and more responsibility, he hasn’t given up on the idea of getting his degree.
«So far this year I’ve really grown mentally and financially, he says, «and when the time comes for college, I’ll be ready.
He says he plans to enroll at his local community college next fall.
Education Desk intern Marco Treviño contributed to this report.
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