In these days of pivot or fail, we don't envy those in the higher education business charged with making fateful decisions, and they all seem to be fateful of late.
As if covid wasn't enough of a challenge, higher education had been looking down the barrel of a forthcoming "enrollment cliff" expected to begin in 2025. Fewer kids are expected to be coming down the high school pipeline, thus fewer graduates, and fewer college students.
And with online degrees growing in popularity, the rise of skilled training programs and the stigma attached to them (finally) fading, traditional college was looking at a period of adjustment regardless.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC), post-secondary enrollment--graduate and undergraduate students--dropped by 4.1 percent nationally in the spring of 2021. There are roughly 1.3 million fewer students enrolled in U.S. undergraduate or graduate-level programs than there were in the spring of 2020.
Counting just undergrads, the overall headcount shrunk by roughly 1.4 million, or 9.4 percent.
The challenges seem all over the place: a shrinking pool of high school graduates, an expanding pool of them opting out of the more expensive traditional-college experience, growing doubts regarding the ability of traditional colleges to deliver a reasonable return on investment, etc.
Save for the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (growth of 5.5 percent), and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (3.7 percent), total enrollment is down from last year at each of the state's 10 public four-year universities. Overall, it's down 3.7 percent.
And about that return on investment... . Rachel Gifford, associate vice president of development and college relations at the two-year Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville, recently told Arkansas Money & Politics that high school seniors these days seem less concerned with college degrees than with direct career paths.
Through ANC's short-term programs, some students could be making up to $50,000 a year in their first year out of school, she said. The college's location in Mississippi County next door to the nation's top emerging steel corridor has enabled students to take advantage of industry-specific degree programs and internships.
Another foreboding trend is a growing education gap between men and women. According to the clearinghouse, women made up 59.5 percent of college students, an all-time high, as of spring 2021.
Four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. saw 1.5 million fewer students enrolled than in 2016. Men accounted for 71 percent of the decline.
Kindle Holderby, UA Little Rock's assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management, told the magazine tuition cost has risen from down the list of concerns expressed by students and parents all the way to the top.
"What they're wanting out of their experience, coupled with that cost, is how long is it going to take me to graduate, and what type of job am I going to get whenever I get out with my degree?"
We'll still argue that the traditional college experience has much value. A walk across the Old Main lawn on a fall afternoon or a spring night, football Saturday afternoons in Fayetteville, or Jonesboro, Conway, Russellville, Arkadelphia . . . there's value there. Real value. The UA's flagship campus in Fayetteville is poised to surpass 30,000 in enrollment, and officials once again are looking at off-campus housing options for a wave of incoming freshmen. Its growth over the last two decades has been impressive.
Because education isn't, or shouldn't be, just a path to a job. Or even a career. Being credentialed isn't the same as being educated. For example, when colleges cut foreign language programs to save money, what are they giving up? The accounting office might say not much. But the college's offerings necessarily are weakened.
State leaders want to increase the number of degrees in the hands of Arkansas' young people. And that's a fine goal. But in a better world, college wouldn't be job-training. It would be a liberal (in the classic sense) education, real schooling and tutelage--call it cultivation, call it enlightenment--that would lead not just to a better citizenry, but to better lives among citizens. We understand that these days, young people look to the bottom line. Some are more interested in what the college can do for them financially than . . . what the college experience can do for them. It's hard to blame them. It's their paycheck in five years' time. But in the least, colleges can still offer the chance at betterment. And had better. Or else look to be replaced by a much less expensive job-training program elsewhere.
We can't all be poets, but we can all appreciate them.