Showing posts with label enrollment cliff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label enrollment cliff. Show all posts

Saturday, October 5, 2024

Lies, Damn Lies, and Projections: Higher Ed Business and the Enrollment Cliff

While nothing is for sure, we at the Higher Education Inquirer believe higher education enrollment is going to continue on a slow downward slope for the foreseeable future, and that it could get worse. Looking at the numbers we see, it's difficult to imagine anyone arguing this. But today there is a debate between those who believe in the enrollment cliff and those who do not.

The Debate

Carleton College Professor Nathan Grawe has used the term "enrollment cliff" to describe the decline that is projected to come to a number of states within the next two years and with a trend that will last for a number of years. He uses information from a number of sources, including the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) to make these estimates. These projected declines are the result of a decline in births during and after the Great Recession. US fertility and birth rates have been declining for generations, but enrollment has been shored up by in-migration and higher rates of high school graduation. These rates could increase as abortions are criminalized.  

US Department of Education enrollment projections are fueling the debate for enrollment cliff deniers. But HEI has observed that ED has been wrong in its projections for years and has largely maintained its faulty formula. Presumably the enrollment cliff deniers also don't believe in the projections by WICHE which predicts modest declines in the number of high school graduates. For the record, these deniers are not uniform in their beliefs, values, or their intentions. 

University of Wisconsin-River Falls Professor Neil Kraus, author of the Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement, believes that "in the aggregate, higher ed enrollments are fairly constant over time, and if you go back decades, have gradually gone up." Kraus has a point. Relatively stable birth rates would seemingly keep enrollments stable, but there are other social, economic, and political factors in the equation. 

It's a Racket on Both Sides 

Some enrollment deniers may not be so sincere. Many in the education business, including the Department of Education, have vested interests in believing everything is OK. But it's not OK. And while funding is important, it's not the entire answer, especially when the money goes into the wrong (greedy) hands, as it frequently does. 

Higher education has become a racket that has garnered increasing public skepticism about its value. That does not mean that parents won't continue to buy into the college mania and encourage all their children to go to a college regardless of the costs, and the potential debt.   

Some who believe in the enrollment cliff, and pitch it to others, may also be insincere. The President of the University of Idaho, for example, has used the enrollment cliff to rationalize their purchase of the University of Phoenix to shore up their revenues, even though Idaho is not likely to feel dramtic looses in enrollment. There are undoubtedly many others who are using this phenomenon to scare people into buying and selling their products and services.

Coming to a Consensus?

Perhaps the term "enrollment cliff" needs to be defined or the term to define the enrollment decline needs to be renamed. No one can deny that US higher education has seen an enrollment peak and a slow steady decline since 2011. There are also estimates that population declines will occur in many states, as a result of out-migration patterns that have been ongoing. There are other states that will continue to see enrollment gains, especially in the South and West. Maybe enrollment cliff is too harsh a term, but reduced enrollment cannot be ignored. 

Related links: 

Department of Education Fails (Again) to Modify Enrollment Projections


US Department of Education Fails to Recognize College Meltdown

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Have Revenues Peaked For US Public Higher Education?

Student higher education enrollment has been headed in a downward trajectory for about 14 years. So, at some point we should have expected revenues to drop. This revenue decline, according to the US Department of Education statistics, finally happened in 2022, the last year reported.  

But until ED updates higher ed revenue numbers, we won't know if we are seeing a statistical blip or something bigger and more long-term. These are numbers that some in the higher ed business may deny, hide, or rationalize for years to come. 

Alabama, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming had similar looking revenue drops in 2022. States with years of consistent declining enrollment, and there are many of them, are difficult to assess without more data.  Some states, like Pennsylvania, have long flat line revenue trajectories that show obvious trends of stagnation. States with growing populations (aside from Texas) appear to have upward revenue trends.

Did federal money received during the Covid crisis artificially lift revenues, leading to an eventual short-term correction, or is there something more to look at?  Saying it's a short-term correction would be a simple answer that higher ed industry proponents could use on the front stage, whether or not it's completely true. But it may be too simple. 

In the future, we will drill down into these numbers and examine revenues in subsets of public higher education, to include community colleges, HBCUs and other minority serving institutions, state universities, and flagship universities in various regions of the US. Private schools (which we will discuss later) may be in a deeper revenue decline. There are few apparent patterns, other than that the rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer (this too we will discuss in another article).

If higher education revenues continue to decline, as they appear to be doing for 2024-2025, what will we see on the ground level? Will there be budget cuts and layoffs?  The California State University System is already bracing for a $1 Billion shortfall, and they are not alone. 

What happens with higher education revenues as the enrollment cliff approaches and states are considering higher education budget cuts?  What happens to schools that rely mostly on tuition and fees with few other sources of revenues? Should institutions expect to receive more federal funds again in the next (inevitable) economic downturn?

 

Related link:

State Budgets Are Downsizing (Pew)

College Meltdown 3.0 Could Start Earlier (And End Worse) Than Planned

Baby Boomers Turning 80: The Flip Side of the 2026 Enrollment Cliff

When will US higher ed revenues peak?

State Universities and the College Meltdown

"20-20": Many US States Have Seen Enrollment Drops of More Than 20 Percent 

Interview with Dahn Shaulis - Higher Education Inquirer (College Viability)

"Let's all pretend we couldn't see it coming" (The US Working-Class Depression)