Higher Education Down 1 Million Undergrads since 2019 after More Declines.
Colleges lost 465,000 students this fall. The continued erosion of enrollment is raising alarm.
More than 1 million fewer students are in college, the lowest enrollment numbers in 50 years
Those headlines and others like it are all based on the Fall 2021 Current Term Enrollment Estimates report released by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Although community college enrollment has continued to hold the unenviable position of having been hit hardest by the pandemic (-13.2%), they suffered comparatively less this past semester (-3.4%) than private for-profit colleges (-11.1%) or public four-year institutions (-3.8%). (Note: Community colleges actually saw a 1.5% increase among students under the age of 18 in Fall 2021. Silver lining?)
Even after years of mild decline in enrollment, it would be easy for the stark picture the data paints to give cause for despair. But advancement professionals are not prone to despair. You are Connecters. Builders. Strategic Thinkers. Problem Solvers.
Across the nation, advancement offices and college foundations are using their roles to address the ongoing enrollment crisis, while also addressing all the other crises swirling around our communities. The approaches are as diverse as the institutions and communities these institutions serve:
At HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, the admissions office didn’t just partner with advancement—they joined the team and shifted under the umbrella of institutional advancement. Together, they are discovering a beautiful synergy between fundraising, marketers, and admissions counselors. As a result, they have launched information sessions for specific constituencies (e.g., single parents, veterans, Latinx, LGBTQ+) but take the program one step further by ensuring that the individual hosting and leading the session is a member of that population. Attendees are also eligible to win a $1,000 voucher toward tuition.
Many colleges have reviewed enrollment data to identify students that were prevented from enrolling for classes and derailed from their educational progress by small outstanding balances on their accounts. Some foundations, like those at Mott Community College and Hawkeye Community College, are working to help defray or eliminate those balances on accounts of students nearing the end of their programs of study to encourage completion.
Some colleges are leveraging a variety of funding sources to attract new students. Using a combination of federal and state funding and other resources, Robeson Community College leveraged North Carolina Longleaf Commitment Grant to provide free tuition for 2020 and 2021 high school graduates, yielding a 4 percent year-over-year increase in enrollment for the spring 2022 semester.
Similarly, the Foundation for New Hampshire Community Colleges partnered with the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation to commit $1 million toward providing a free three-credit course at one of seven NH community colleges to every member of the 2021 graduating high school class. Over 1,200 students participated and enrolled across the Community College System of NH. Preliminary numbers indicate a higher persistence rate for these students from Fall 2021 to Spring 2022 than their typical cohorts across the colleges.
Other colleges have engaged their alumni base. Collin College, recognizing the need to utilize federal stimulus funds before they expire this spring, reached out to 250,000 alumni via email to encourage re-enrollment, yielding 39,000 opens and 8,000 click-throughs.
Delaware County Community College’s advancement/alumni office partnered with their enrollment team to assist with re-engaging “stop-out” students who were close but not ready to graduate. Together, the teams launched two events in Fall 2021 for returning students featuring interesting guest speakers secured by the advancement/alumni office.
Each of these examples highlights how community college advancement offices and foundations around the country have stepped into the enrollment and admissions space to help address, mitigate—and in some cases, even start to reverse—the steep enrollment decline we have seen since the start of the pandemic.
Through the work that you do, the funds that you raise, the partnerships and relationships that you foster—both internally and externally—and the creative collaborations that you launch, you help colleagues, students, and community members see the light at the end of the tunnel, whenever that may come.
So, let’s add another name to that list of titles I referenced earlier:
Light-bringers.