The number of students at Arkansas' colleges and universities has slipped by nearly 5 percent since fall 2012, in part because fewer students are enrolling at the state's two-year colleges.
Some 166,689 students -- including those in high school taking college-level courses -- were enrolled at the state's colleges and universities this fall, according to preliminary data from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. In fall 2012, the schools enrolled 174,667 students.
The trends are similar nationwide. Enrollment has slowly but steadily fallen since the end of the recession, mostly because of economic reasons, said Tom Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The biggest drops in enrollment were at for-profit institutions and then community colleges, according to a National Student Clearinghouse report.
Long a point of pride and a way to fund schools, enrollment is becoming less important to officials in Arkansas as higher-education leaders look to a new way to fund public colleges and universities -- one that focuses more on student success and graduation and less on head count, and one that will be before legislators this spring.
"Growth always looks good," said Maria Markham, director of the Higher Education Department. "I think that [enrollment is] going to be less and less important as we move along. We are shifting away from quantity of enrollment to quality of the student experience."
For years, the state has funded its 11 public universities and 22 public community colleges based largely on enrollment. But in an attempt to increase the rate of students who graduate within six years, higher-education officials have looked for the past several months at changing the way to fund higher-education institutions.
The state historically has fallen below the national average in the six-year graduation rate, which was 59.6 percent for first-time, full-time students who began seeking bachelor's degrees at four-year institutions in fall 2007 and earned degrees within six years, according to the U.S. Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
The state Higher Education Department said earlier this year that 39.7 percent of the 15,066 students enrolling for the first time at a public four-year institution in fall 2009 graduated within six years. Officials hope to move the percentage of certificate and degree holders in the state to 60 percent by 2025, one of the main goals of the state's master plan for higher education.
Future jobs increasingly will require some sort of college credential -- a technical certificate or degree -- and a better-educated workforce attracts higher-paying jobs to the state and helps improve Arkansas' standard of living.
"I think we were supposed to double where we were by the year 2025," University of Arkansas System President Donald Bobbitt said. "That's still quite admirable. So we're hoping to double by 2025 and hit maybe 55; Texas is hoping to hit 60. And right now, South Korea is at 65 percent.
"So our competition is not our neighboring states. Our competition is South Korea, and they are far ahead of us. So we're not along in this, but schools are going to have to figure it out."
A new funding method that will go before legislators as a bill this spring would reward colleges and universities in which students -- especially those with the odds stacked against them, including first-generation or low-income students -- progress from year to year and ultimately graduate.
If adopted, the model will lead the state's higher-education institutions into a period of emphasis on both recruitment of students and making sure those students succeed, Bobbitt said.
The schools need students starting college to raise graduation rates, Markham said.
In Arkansas, the public four-year universities grew 1.4 percent from last fall and 3.6 percent since fall 2012, the data show. Many other states are seeing similar trends, although some in the Northeast are seeing the college-going rate of recent high school graduates dry up, Harnisch said.
"Since 2008, there's been a sharp decline in the college enrollment among low-income students," he said. "That is particularly worrisome right now, and we need to look at the factors driving that."
The state's head-count data did not tease apart the numbers to show student demographics, but the Higher Education Department reviews that data, Markham said, adding she didn't expect to see a major change in demographics this year.
"The master plan is new and is just being rolled out," she said. "We're still trying to communicate the importance of certain practices and behaviors that will drive the changes we're going to see. It's an investment, and it may take some time to see the results of those efforts."
Among public universities, Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia grew by double digits for the second year in a row. The university now has 4,771 students, an increase of more than 43 percent since fall 2012.
"We kind of went up in several areas," SAU President Trey Berry said. "Undergraduate enrollment went up about 5 percent this year. Graduate enrollment went up about 46 percent. First-time freshman enrollment was up over 7 percent. And then we've got the most students living on campus. As you can imagine, fast growth also brings its own challenges."
The university just finished building two dorms with a total 264 beds, and it is looking at renovating an old skating rink on campus into student housing and at building another dorm -- an addition of 160 beds, he said.
The head count reflects the health of an institution, he said.
"Enrollment reflects how attractive a university is and how attractive its programs are and how relevant they are to the job market," Berry said. "I think probably 75 percent of our growth has been from new programs and the graduate program."
As an example, he said, SAU is in its third year of offering an engineering program, which has about 200 students. That degree program continues to attract students, and the university began offering a new option called engineering welding in coordination with Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden. The option is one of a handful in the nation and caters to the aerospace, oil and gas industries, Berry said.
The state's public community colleges saw a 4 percent decline from last fall and an almost 19 percent drop since fall 2012.
Enrollment at two-year colleges has more ties to the economy, many in higher education said. When the economy tanks, more people will enroll either in lieu of work or for better job prospects. A healthy economy brings in fewer students as more people work.
The key is to focus on workers who can earn a certificate or degree while they continue doing their jobs, said Markham, the Higher Education Department director.
"The answer is: How can we already complement what they are already doing?" she said.
Metro on 10/06/2016