“St. Mike’s is facing a demographic decline in the size of the prospective student population, so the college’s plan is to shrink a bit (the college I work at serves much the same market, and is facing much the same challenge…)”
This is simply not true. The class entering 2014 was a record class of about 600 students. They needed to cut the class back a bit in 2015 do to housing constraints. Not many small schools have this luxury.