I find this odd after the recent articles claiming declining enrollment numbers at colleges in general in the country.
@TomSrOfBoston You are right about BC. We’ve been told most forced triples ever right now.
@57special, exactly! I am very confused here. Now, could it be that the good parents here on CC only mostly talk about the top XX colleges, and we’re just not hearing about the plethora of dorms available at other colleges, or was it misreported that enrollment is declining at 4 year universities? Those two facts seem contradictory, but maybe I am missing something.
Could be that the overenrollment issues are more common at the more selective colleges that are the focus of most forum posters, while other less selective colleges may be getting fewer interested students. Colleges that are expensive but undistinguished may be most vulnerable if students are now more prone to choosing (perceived) quality or lower cost.
@57special @ucbalumnus @sbjdorlo That’s why I started this thread, to see how widespread this over enrolment is. State flagships are one thing but many top private universities are also affected. It is more of a problem for top privates because they want families/students to feel they won’t face overcrowding issues there.
Except for Mizzou, which has its unique causes, no top 100 universities seem to be shy of enrolling students.
A few months old, but a list of colleges that were still accepting fall 2017 applications:
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/college-openings-fall-2017
I assume these are at least some of the colleges that are under-enrolled.
@prospect1 With a few exceptions those are not top 100 colleges. Although I am surprised to see University of Arizona and Beloit College on the list.
Cheyney University, a public HBCU in southeastern Pennsylvania, has lost 50% of its enrollment in the past decade, including a drop of 30% from last year to this fall. It is in a death spiral. It has been on probation for loss of accreditation for almost two years, and may well lose its accreditation (and thus access to federal financial assistance for its students) at the end of 2017. The PASSHE system (Pennsylvania’s regional public university system that does not include Penn State, Pitt, or Temple), including Cheyney, overall had a 12% decline in enrollment from 2010 to 2016.
That’s what’s happening at the bottom of the higher-education food chain in the declining-population Northeast (and probably the declining-population Midwest, too).
@JHS Yet a report evaluating the PASSHE system did not recommend any closings or mergers, most likely for political reasons.
Drop at Cheyney due to cost? Or the waning era of HBCU? Or that other schools actively diversify, and therefore recruit URMs? Just saw the headline that Harvard’s class of 2021 is the first class over 50% non-white.
This is certainly an interesting thread. As someone who works as a college consultant, these trends are important to know about and pass along to my students. Buyer beware and all that.
I second that here…a triple turned into a quad my freshman year, with no mention of discount!
I would be interested in seeing the data on international admits and enrolls this cycle. If there was a lot of speculation that international enrollment would be down due to Trump’s administration – and that seems to be clear from several posts in this thread – and we know that full-pay internationals are an important part of the budget mix for many schools, it would be almost foolish for a school administration to NOT increase international admissions this year in order to protect that tuition source against erosion. If the decline never materialized, then that could be a major contributor to record over-enrollment
DOW 22,000 paying some tuition bills now that seemed unlikely a few years ago.
(X) All of the above, and more. The population isn’t increasing here. Mass incarceration contributes to the waning of HBCUs. The young Bayard Rustins and Ed Bradleys of today have many, many more options, and take them. The size of Cheyney today does not really support a full range of majors.
I saw an article stating that Texas was bucking the declining enrollment trend. From what I read, it sounds like declining enrollment correlated to the shifting population in the US, with schools in the Northeast being the most affected. I would guess that lower ranked private schools drawing from primarily from the region and satellite campuses for state schools in these areas are the most likely to be impacted.
Somewhat randomly, I checked SUNY Fredonia’s figures. Fall 2014 undergraduate enrollment was about 4,960, with 1,070 entering freshmen (against a target of 1,100). Fall 2016 undergraduate enrollment was 4,380, with 940 entering freshmen. That’s 15% below a target thought realistic two years earlier. Spring 2017 enrollment was several hundred below that, but I think spring is always lower.
I believe there are a lot of Fredonias out there with lots of excess capacity and some serious budget issues.
Has anyone seen enrollment numbers for Fall 2017 from UCB yet? I’m wondering if they will see some impact from the protests there like Mizzou is experiencing. Looks like their freshman acceptance rate rose from 17.5% to 18.3% this year, which could either be indicative of an issue or could be statistically irrelevant.
Over enrollment happens all the time when yield rate is higher than expected. That happened to UMich a few years ago that it exceeded the housing capacity by 300. Finally they have admitted less students this year and made use of the wait list heavily to avoid this problem.
I think with NYS’s implementation of the Excelsior scholarship, the usual suspect SUNY schools are going to become more competitive (already started at New Paltz and Geneseo) This means families will cast a wider net and go off the grid to get a deal.
@sybbie719 and @JHS - The collegedata site says that there are 4,587 students (including my son) at Fredonia this upcoming year, including 1036 freshmen. The school is really marketing itself, offering single rooms rather than letting them sit empty and recruiting downstate. Four kids are attending Fredonia from my son’s HS this fall and one MIGHT be eligible for Excelsior, the other 3, including mine, are not. Excelsior didn’t factor into the college decisions that I made or that any of my friends made, at least this year. I don’t personally know a single person sending a child to a SUNY school this year who qualifies for the scholarship.
I have 4 kids who are rising juniors who are EOP at fredomia and are really enjoying the experience. I have 3 kids who are rising sophomores and 3 who are rising freshmen who were all full pay but are now tuition eligible through excelsior.
You are absolutely correct about the increased efforts to recruit so state especially since now most of the SUNY schools now have offices in NYC and there are other schools who are now part of ROAM-NYC, and the NYC DOE is making a big push in college4all. They have added 175 new high schools this year where schools sent teams of administrators, counselors and teachers and providing each member high school with a $25k grant for the initiative