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What Do We Do If No One is Here? The Issue of Declining College Enrollment

Megan Marshall

Higher Education & Student Affairs, Western Carolina University

Dr. April Perry

April 8th, 2024

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What Do We Do If No One is Here? The Issue of Declining College Enrollment.

Despite the observable difference in the mission and values of an institution of higher

education, the overall purpose of the school remains the same. Reiterated by the ongoings and

overall practice of the institution, the point of an institution is to spread knowledge (Whittington,

2022). This is primarily done by educating students who enroll in the university. However, it is

difficult to educate and disseminate knowledge if no one is there to learn.

There are roughly 4,000 institutions of higher learning in the United States (U.S) that

confer some sort of degree (Pavlov, 2020). This is a large number of institutions who would

ideally like to have full enrollments. There are several aspects that influence enrollment

practices, such as demographics, trust in education, and rising costs; all of these influencing the

likelihood that someone will choose to pursue any level of advanced degree (Boeckenstedt,

2023). In 2021, institutions were already seeing about a substantial decrease in enrollment

(Boeckenstedt, 2023). This enrollment drop was projected for later in the decade, although the

COVID-19 pandemic certainly had notable impacts on institutional enrollment (Fischer, 2022).

This paper will aim to discuss the causes for the impending enrollment drop, and viable solutions

that institutions could develop in order to survive.

Literature Review

Demographic Storm

In 2007, there was a decrease in birth rates due to The Great Recession (Boeckenstedt,

2022). Recessions are often paired with low birthrates as a result of their reaction to negative

personal and societal wide economic situations, lower personal incomes, and higher demand for

jobs due to higher unemployment rates (Sobotha, 2011). Overall, recessions are paired with

uncertainty and many individuals may choose to make decisions that will be better for them
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financially. This decrease in births in 2007 is what some scholars refer to as a demographic

storm. In other words, the decrease in enrollment is caused by simply a lack of people (Pavlov,

2020). While certainly not all college students are between the ages of 18-24, the target

demographic (those in young adulthood, the identified 18-24) simply do not exist enough to keep

university enrollment numbers up by the years 2025 and 2026 (Boeckenstedt, 2022). The

applicant pool for 2–4-year regional institutions could potentially drop by 10% (Fischer, 2022).

The most drastic issue that may emerge from this demographic storm is an increase in

college closures (Pavlov, 2020). Essentially, there are so many institutions but not enough

students to attend them. In addition to a decrease in birth rates, as a result of the recession there

were also considerably less children being born into families with advanced degrees (Cozzolino

et al., 2018). This is notable as the assumption here is that understanding or experience with the

academic process that comes from guardians with degrees could be a benefit to the success of

future applicants, since studies show that education enrollment varies dependent on the degree

earned by the parent or guardian (Declercq et al., 2015). This particular cause has been projected

to increase in prevalence in the later part of the next decade, but some issues facing enrollment

and the age of individuals enrolling, is currently in affect.

Losing Faith in Education

Another reason for a possible decline in enrollment in higher education is that the general

public lacks the confidence they once had in places of higher education (Boeckenstedt, 2022).

Part of the issue of this lack of belief is that people do not think that institutions are changing fast

enough. For example, in recent years Georgetown University has been responding to critiques

about their history with slavery and has been trying to make amends (Jaschik, 2019). Many
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students do not want to go to a university that is not changing or acknowledging its history fast

enough.

Rising Costs for Lower Income Students

Education is considered a tool to advancement, and it gives students from low

socioeconomic backgrounds the opportunity to improve their socioeconomic status above the

status of their parents. However, less students are able to afford higher education (Cozzolino et

al., 2022). Due to limited resources in their K-12 education, students from lower socioeconomic

backgrounds may perform lower on standardized testing and have less perceived academic

ability (Declercq et al., 2015). Students also experience more costs as a result of their education,

that are more indirect in nature. Students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds may need

to work more to subsidize their educations, and time they spend studying or going to class could

potentially impact when they could be making money (Declercq et al., 2015). Lastly, it is more

difficult to get students to buy into the golden opportunity that education is advertised as.

Students from these backgrounds have the opportunity to raise their socioeconomic statuses, but

it is hard for them to believe. The changing costs of higher education make it difficult to pursue

degrees. In addition, if less students pursue higher education, that could force universities into

raising tuition, since the cost to run the university could be split between fewer students (Pavlov,

2020).

Theoretical Framework

Banning and Kaiser’s “Ecological Perspective” on the role of campus environment and

serving students is applicable to this issue. This perspective works to combat three other

perspectives that relate to the responsibility of an organization to support the needs of the

students that attend it. This theory essentially says that colleges have a responsibility to the
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students to create and keep spaces that allow them to succeed and to thrive (Shuh et al., 2017).

This perspective is important to schools when considering that none of them were founded to

benefit the diverse populations of students that attend them today (Shuh et al., 2017). This

perspective gives reasoning behind a college having the responsibility to continue to work to

serve all of its students regardless of their identities.

Drop in enrollment is due largely to demographics, financial identities, as well as a lack

of support for educating as a result of slow changes in policies. This perspective informs a

physical university design aspect called “Ecological Design” which looks at how to best create

spaces for all students (Shuh et al., 2017). This perspective is beneficial in that context because a

possible way to manage the enrollment decline is to market an institution to a wider audience and

update spaces at the intuition to be more appealing. These updates could be physical, or they

could also be curriculum changes that make a school seem more appealing.

While not directly causational on either end, the attitude of a university can affect the

attitude or opinion / value a student may have. For example, a student being very equity focused

may be something that is important to them, but they may feel pressure to be less outspoken

about their beliefs if they attend an institution that does not share their views on a concept (Shuh

et al., 2017).

Universal Design

Another concept that is valuable when considering the design of college campuses is

Universal Design (UD). This is a method of designing an environment so it can be used by the

most people possible (Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, n.d.) Furthermore, UD

attempts to make environments accessible regardless of ability or circumstance. While

commonly considered in relation to individuals with disabilities, UD is helpful because it

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accounts for those with temporary or situational limitations as well. Consider curb cuts on a

sidewalk: individuals with permanent disabilities that use a wheelchair utilize curb cuts to exit

the sidewalk, but so do those with temporary injuries, and perhaps so do parents with a stroller,

or an individual with a wheeled cart. Designs like this should be included in several aspects of a

college campus in order to make it more accessible to a variety of populations. UD on college

campuses can be a helpful tool in combating declining college enrollment, as enabling it allows

greater access to an institution to those who would like to attend.

UD does not only include physical environment, but there are also guidelines for learning

inside the classroom, known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Adjusting the physical

space to meet the needs of a variety of students is important, but equally important is the process

of adjusting the learning environment to fit a variety of needs, overall increasing institutional

accessibility. Much of UDL involves providing multiple modes of instruction and ways to

demonstrate knowledge (CAST, n.d). This is not an easy task, and takes time to implement, as

many instructors, especially on a college campus have not been utilizing this method and will

have to make extensive changes to accommodate UDL. One of the methods suggested is a “plus

one” method (Houghton, 2022, p. 15). This method says that in order for educators to implement

it they should do it by addressing one principle at once and increasing their use of UDL each

time that they update course content (Houghton, 2022).

Discussion & Analysis

There are two major ways that colleges can survive the impending decrease in

enrollment. The first option is to figure out how to account for the finical deficits that the

institution will feel from the lack of tuition revenue. The second is to find a way to not reduce the

enrollment due to the demographic age of the students.

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An example of how some institutions did this is evident in the practices they engaged in

during the COVID-19 pandemic. To offset funding many institutions cut facilities costs. Schools

could also lay-off faculty and staff to cut costs they are not bringing in via their decreased

enrollment (Pavlov, 2020). In addition to staff, an institution of higher education may also cut the

facilities budgets by closing residence halls, dining halls, and just have overall less amenities

available, as to not have to pay for upkeep / additional salaries for those upkeeps (Pavlov, 2020).

This is certainly a viable option and decreasing expenditures up front is one of the least abrasive

ways for a school to come up with the additional funds they are missing, however, this is not

sustainable long term. Eventually, the money made by cutting positions runs out, or enrollment

continues to drop due to a decrease in services from the college, making this not a viable long-

term option for cost management. Some schools find themselves borrowing from preexisting

endowments to cover larger gaps in their budget. The issue with this method is again, that it is

not sustainable. If a school borrows funds from an endowment, they have to pay it back, and

while it might help them at one point, it later increases their repayment time and cost, overall

being more expensive (Pavlov, 2020).

Colleges could combat this issue by targeting other populations. One of the populations

most at risk of no longer attening college is lower income students (Declercq & Verboven,

2015). In addition, some of the impending drop is due to a decrease in birthrates and less people

graduating form high school as a result (Boeckenstedt, 2022), so colleges could market towards

other groups of people in order to successfully meet their enrollment quota. Programs could

focus more on graduate school enrollment, and try to recruit people from the workforce, who

already have undergraduate degrees. Colleges could also try to increase their enrollment by

investing in ways to make their facilities seem more enticing to age groups outside of 18-24
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regardless of an advanced degree through resource expansion to fit the needs of multiple

dempgraphics (Pavlov, 2020). Colleges could also update their instructional spaces to be more

accessible to different learning styles (Hougton, 2022). This would mean more upfront costs for

the college but would hopefully be offset by an increase in enrollment.

Conclusion

Declining enrollment is an increasing fear for many who work in the field of higher

education. If at the end of the day, there are no students, who will an institution teach? If the

goal of higher education is to spread knowledge, than it is going to become increasingly more

difficult to do so if there is no one in the classrooms to educate. Furthermore, some colleges may

experience closures as a result of the lack of enrollment, and that certainly does nothing to spread

knowledge throughout a society.

Prominent reasons for declining enrollment are “demographic storm,” and the lack of

belief in higher education. Some of these causes for declining enrollment are the faults of a

university, while others are due to unforeseen circumstances. The lack of belief in the legitimacy

of a college degree could be seen as a shortcoming of a college. Either the degrees that are being

conferred are not assisting students in getting jobs after graduation, or they are not adequately

preparing them for the world outside of an institution. Another concept related to this, that does

fall on institutional shoulders is the lack of belief a student has in the university to change and

grow with its students. The responsibility off the institution is to continue to grow with the

students, and the critique of some students is that the institutions are not earning fast enough. For

example, in the recent decade several institutions have begun to take responsibility for their

actions and participation during horrendous events in history. The actions of colonial colleges are

coming into news recently, and those schools are having to take ownership of their actions and
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change their practices to better fit the needs of their changing demographics. This is something

that an institution has always had the ability to do, but likely chose not to since no one had

brought it up. In recent years, several institutions have tried to remedy this by getting ahead of

their history and airing it before someone else does. For some prospective students, this could be

a benefit to a particular school.

The question still stands, what does an institution do if there are no students?

Realistically, the best solution would be to find a way to get the students. Fix the problems

stopping the available students from enrolling and try to reach a larger group of potential

applicants and trying to shift overall public opinion on the value of a degree in general.

This issue is pressing because the continued decrease in enrollment without solutions

could cause schools to shut down. This is upsetting because many students will still attend those

schools and would no longer have an institution. The community that student affairs work so

hard for students to build their first year would be gone. Student affairs should embrace the every

student every time mentality because one school’s shut down will not affect the entirety of

higher education, but it will certainly make a difference for the student attending the school that

is shut down.
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References

Boeckenstedt, J. (2022 March 22). Will your college survive the demographic cliff? The Chronicle of

Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/will-your-college-survive-the-

demographic-cliff.

CAST (n.d). The UDL guidelines.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/

reference_list_electronic_sources.html

Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (n.d). About universal design.

https://universaldesign.ie/about-universal-design

Cozzolino, E., Smith, C., & Crosnoe, R. L. (2018). Family-related disparities in college enrollment

across the great recession. Sociological Perspectives, 61(5), 689–710.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121418760542

Declercq, K., & Verboven, F. (2015). Socio-economic status and enrollment in higher education: do

costs matter? Education Economics, 23(5), 532–556.]

=https://doi.org/10.1080/09645292.2015.1047822

Fischer, K. (2022, August 22). In the past, colleges grew their way out of enrollment crises. This time

looks different. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-

shrinking-of-higher-ed

Houghton, J. (2022). New to universal design for learning? Start here! New Directions for Teaching &

Learning, 2022(172), 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20525

Jaschick, S. (2019, April 20). Georgetown students cote to add fee to pay reparations. PBS.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/georgetown-students-vote-to-add-fee-to-pay-

reparations
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Schuh, J. H., Jones, S. R., & Torres, V. (2017). Student services: A handbook for the profession. John

Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Whittington, K. E. (2022) Academic freedom and the mission of the university. Houston Law Review,

59(4), 101-120.

Sobotka, T., Skirbekk, V., & Philipov, D. (2011). Economic recession and fertility in the developed

world. Population & Development Review, 37(2), 267–306. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-

4457.2011.00411.x