A6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022
to convince potential and current
students that college is worth it
over the long term. “What we have
to do as educators is deliver that
value proposition to the parents
and to those kids,” he said. “We’re
trying to touch the kid that doesn’t
see college as their future.”
That vision can be a tough sell.
Milia Dawes toured colleges in
Massachusetts, filled out a federal
financial aid application and re-
searched performing arts at Tem-
ple University in Philadelphia. Yet
nagging uncertainties of what to
study, where to go and how to pay
for it all gave her pause after she
graduated in 2020 from a high
school in the Philadelphia suburbs.
“It felt really risky,” Dawes, now
19, said of enrolling in college. “I
was never really sure. You don’t
put that kind of money out — you
don’t make that kind of commit-
ment — if you’re not sure. I didn’t
think it was the responsible thing
to do.”
With encouragement from her
mother, she enrolled at Delaware
County Community College. But
she said she felt adrift in virtual
classes and quit school that No-
vember. Dawes toyed with return-
ing, but her mother’s sudden
death in March 2021 changed her
priorities. She took a job at a Wawa
convenience store, moved into a
small apartment and eventually
enrolled in cosmetology school.
Her next goal is to work in a beauty
salon, but she hasn’t ruled out
college.
“Maybe in the future, I’ll take it
bit by bit with online classes and
do it while I’m doing hair and
makeup, wherever that takes me,”
Dawes said. “Maybe I could get a
business degree to move up in the
field.”
Pennsylvania faces another ob-
stacle to college enrollment: a pat-
tern of low funding for higher
education. The State Higher Edu-
cation Executive Officers Associa-
tion, teaming with Illinois State
University, compiled estimates
that show Pennsylvania this year
is spending about $142 per capita
on higher education, less than ev-
ery state except New Hampshire.
As a result, students and their
families pay a larger share of cam-
pus operating expenses. Tuition
and fees for public universities are
higher in Pennsylvania than in
most states.
That, too, often hurts recruit-
ing. Penn State, Temple and the
University of Pittsburgh, all public
institutions with national profiles,
are in stronger shape than the
Pennsylvania State System of
Higher Education, which encom-
passes IUP, East Stroudsburg and
12 other regional universities.
The system, with chronic en-
rollment problems, has been
forced to cut costs. Plans are un-
derway to merge six of its schools
into two universities with three
campuses apiece. Gov. Tom Wolf
(D) is seeking a 16 percent operat-
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGEsemester will be charged $7,716 in
the next school year — 19 percent
lower than the sticker price this
year. Those prices don’t include
scholarships and need-based fi-
nancial aid.
Now the university says it is
laser-focused on recruiting and
retaining students. “It’s a culture
change,” Driscoll said. “If I’m
thinking about enrollment, it
r eally is about ‘every student mat-
ters.’ ”
Around the country, regional
public universities such as IUP
have faced many more enrollment
difficulties in recent years than
the state flagships that fill seats
easily. That is doubly problematic
because regional schools also tend
to serve more disadvantaged fami-
lies. Forty percent of IUP’s stu-
dents have enough financial need
to qualify for federal Pell grants,
nearly twice the share found at
better-known Pennsylvania State
University.
The promise of social mobility,
at an affordable price, draws stu-
dents from low-income families to
public colleges and universities.
They see the bachelor’s degree as a
ticket to a better life. The degrees
are neither a prerequisite for, nor a
guarantee of, career success. But
research shows they are powerful-
ly correlated with good jobs.
A study in October from
Georgetown University’s Center
on Education and the Workforce
found the median lifetime earn-
ings of those whose highest cre-
dential is a bachelor’s degree was
$2.8 million, with the top quartile
making at least $4.1 million. For
those with only a high school di-
ploma, the median was $1.6 mil-
lion, with the top quartile at $2.
million or more. The bachelor’s
degree “is still the gold standard,
especially over the long term,” said
Anthony P. Carnevale, director of
the center.
Now, many potential college
students are feeling the pull of the
job market. The nation’s unem-
ployment rate edged below 4 per-
cent in February, and employers
are offering higher wages and ben-
efits for entry-level jobs that don’t
require a college degree.
At public East Stroudsburg Uni-
versity, in the Pocono range of
eastern Pennsylvania, enrollment
fell 17 percent after the pandemic
started, to 5,100 students as of last
fall. Kenneth Long, the univer-
sity’s interim president, said he
often hears of potential students
jumping into the retail or service
industries in search of $15 an hour,
sometimes $20 or more. “That’s
what we’re competing against in
many ways,” he said. Wages looked
especially attractive when univer-
sities were operating largely on-
line at the beginning of the pan-
demic. Long recalled a university
student who told him: “I’m going
to take a semester off because I’m
making really, really good money
right now.”
Long wants to redouble effortsthe value of higher education in-
tensified during the public health
crisis and economic tumult.
That’s an enrollment loss of
nearly 1 million students. Some
drifted out of college, while others
never started. Many colleges are
on an urgent quest to keep current
students and recover their lost
freshmen.
At stake are not only the educa-
tion and career prospects of huge
numbers of young adults, but also
the financial health of regional
colleges and universities. Once
students leave, they often don’t
return. Gap years can become per-
manent.
“How do we get these people to
come back — especially in a strong
job market?” asked Courtney
Brown, a vice president with the
Lumina Foundation, based in In-
dianapolis, which promotes learn-
ing beyond high school. Privileged
universities are weathering the
upheaval, Brown said. “It’s every-
body else that is hurting.”
Here in western Pennsylvania
and elsewhere, the student short-
age has been developing for sev-
eral years because of demographic
factors such as stagnant popula-
tion growth. The pandemic and,
lately, rising wages in the eco-
nomic recovery have accelerated
the trend.
The National Student Clearing-
house Research Center, which
produced the national estimate of
enrollment decline, found acute
troubles in several states since fall
- In Pennsylvania, public uni-
versity enrollment fell 12 percent,
and community college enroll-
ment plunged 23 percent.
IUP, as the public university
here is known, mirrored the state
pattern. Its fall student head count
of about 9,300 was down 12 per-
cent since 2019. Federal data
shows enrollment peaked in 2012
at more than 15,500. That’s a 40
percent decline in a less than a
decade, battering the university’s
finances.
Starting in summer 2019, IUP
President Michael A. Driscoll said,
the school cut its workforce by
about a quarter through attrition
and layoffs. It also merged the
College of Fine Arts and College of
Humanities and Social Sciences,
cut academic programs in fields
such as dance arts, and reorga-
nized numerous other programs.
“Dramatic and traumatic
changes,” Driscoll acknowledged.
Recently, IUP cut tuition to woo
in-state students. Those who take
a full-time load of 15 units per
COLLEGES FROM A
Colleges scramble to win back their
lost freshmen amid enrollment plunge
PHOTOS BY JEFF SWENSEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTProspective students listen to a presentation last month in the admissions department of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, or IUP as it’s known here. The school’s fall student head count of about 9,300 was
down 12 percent since 2019. Federal data shows enrollment peaked in 2012 at more than 15,500.
Michael A. Driscoll, at center, president of IUP, said that starting in summer 2019, the school
cut its workforce by about a quarter through attrition and layoffs. The town of Indiana, Pa.,
above, is the home of IUP. The school saw a 40 percent decline in enrollment in less than a
decade, battering the university’s finances.“It’s a culture change. If I’m thinking about enrollment,
i t really is about ‘every student matters.’ ”
Michael A. Driscoll, president of IUP