How to See the “Enrollment Cliff” Facing Colleges

Neville Pinto
| Opinion contributor

We hear a lot about college enrollment lately. And it’s certain that at least once in every conversation or article you’ll hear the phrase “enrollment cliff” — the idea that our student population is declining and that we’re all in trouble. Before we visualize ourselves as lemmings rushing to the edge, however, it’s worth looking through the numbers at the people behind them.

It’s true that college enrollment, after a steady increase since the 1970s, began to decline in many parts of the country as early as 2010. But many schools have been on the enrollment list since then, including the University of Cincinnati, which saw record 10-year enrollment since and every year since – even during the pandemic, when the number of national students in just two years fell by almost one and a half million.

This is not to deny the existence of registration challenges going forward. The consensus view is that the US college age population will begin to shrink by as much as 15% over the next 10 years. But it’s worth remembering that higher education was supposed to be coming off a similar cliff in the 1990s, with an even bigger decline in high school age.

It didn’t. In fact, enrollment from 1986 to 2010 increased by almost two-thirds. So what did we do wrong? Or right?

That 1990s cliff turned into an upward path because census numbers aren’t the most important thing. Success in higher education is about how we enable students to participate and then support them in those crucial years, whether or not they are sidelined by a vertigo.

Universities often focus their enrollment objective almost entirely on first-year students. As it happens, the number of first-year students decreased slightly this fall, but online and transfer students increased significantly, contributing to the record enrollment. Also, our summer enrollment is now the largest in Ohio.

The number of part-time students has also increased nationwide, especially at four-year public schools. As with online learning, this continues a trend that peaked during the pandemic.

Who gets to go is as important as when. In 2022, 61% of people aged 18-24 were not enrolled, which equates to 19 million people. Of course, some don’t want to, but for others it means financial difficulties or a lack of family tradition. Many from both groups entered UC last fall, thanks to scholarship programs and a 10% increase in first-generation students.

And instead of waiting on our fingers for students to choose our schools, universities can increase their readiness to do so. Take it from me, the students want it. This year, for example, we’ve seen a 25% jump in our College Credit Plus program, which allows high school students to take college-level courses before graduating, reducing their tuition costs here at UC—or at any school of their choice.

Why is it important to improve registration? It may seem like a silly question, but think about it: a bigger school is not necessarily a better one, or even more financially viable. Educating more of us is important because it improves every aspect of an economy driven by knowledge and lifelong learning. Some of these aspects have numbers attached, but others are more resistant to data analysis.

Graduates, for example, earn about twice as much over their careers as those with a high school diploma, and there are also broader economic benefits: increased productivity, an increased tax base, and reduced need for public services.

But higher education provides all these benefits with its emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, and respect for differences between people and ideas. All of this makes us better workers, neighbors and citizens.

As management consultant and futurist John Hagel puts it: “In a rapidly changing world, the ability to learn faster at scale will increasingly determine success.”

Consider our fair city. When our university was founded in 1819, Cincinnati was a fairly unimportant river town with a population of less than 10,000. Would we be anywhere near where we are today—a vibrant city of two and a quarter million—without educated people leading the way?

Now think bigger: imagine one world without colleges and universities. When your next doctor’s appointment rolled around, would you trust your doctor or nurse? What about your children’s teachers, your electrician, your accountant? We take for granted levels of learning in these areas and dozens of others. Our lives literally depend on it.

Universities are repositories of knowledge, yes, but also economic engines and fountains of creativity. The changes education can bring to people and societies are hard to measure but hard to miss. Even a cliff gives us all a better view.

Neville Pinto is president of the University of Cincinnati.

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How to See the “Enrollment Cliff” Facing Colleges

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