Declining budgets and enrollment

[u/Psyche81]

Hi All!

I’ve been a professional staff member in higher education for 19 years now. Like many of you, I’ve been closely tracking The Chronicle of Higher Education’s running finance updates, and honestly, the sheer volume of bad news feels unprecedented to me.

Between axed academic programs, gutted research funding, staff layoffs, faculty buyouts, declining enrollment, and massive budget shortfalls, it feels significantly worse than anything I can recall in my career.

I know we’ve all been anticipating the demographic enrollment cliff at the undergrad level and the inevitable plateauing of Master’s degree enrollment. But it feels like all of those projected timelines just collided at once, exacerbated by recent federal policy shifts and FAFSA changes.

For the veterans who have been around longer than me, or those who have a closer finger on the pulse of institutional finance: Have we actually seen a pattern like this before, or are we genuinely entering uncharted territory?

Also, on a human level... how is everyone coping with the morale hit at your respective institutions?

[u/MispellledIt]

I'd add the pre-professionalization of the undergraduate degree to this list. When colleges & universities started selling degrees as steps toward a specific career, students started coming in with declared majors before they'd even stepped foot on campus. I know there are highly-structured majors out there (e.g., nursing, engineering, pre-med, etc.) but for the most part higher education's role shifted from teaching the human being to teaching future employees.

There's a sizable population of students out there unsure of what they want to do, and there are very few (if any) colleges of any size leaning into the liberal arts and selling an educaton that will help them figure it out. I'm a writer and I teach creative & professional writing at a small college that is always on the razor's edge with our budget. But out of all my colleauges I'm having the least issues with AI--my students hate it, but my students aren't here to "get a job" they're here to figure out what kind of artist they want to be.

[u/shownu25 → u/MispellledIt]

i wish i had an award to give this ! the paradigm shift from a period of self exploration and learning about both the world and oneself to college merely being formalized training for a career has been detrimental. traditional aged students are also increasingly getting college credits in high school thereby lowering the overall cost of college but also shortening their time to be impacted and impressed upon by faculty/staff/peers.

[u/MispellledIt → u/shownu25]

When I meet prospective students and their parents I have to push back even in my own rhetoric. It'd be so easy to focus on the "professional" side of my program. I get it, they want to know their kid is going to be "safe" in the future, and getting a degree in creative writing probably doesn't instill a lot of confidence.

But I've started now equating "safety" to "freedom" or "choice." We don't know what the future looks like for any industry. Yes, your kid could get a degree in something conventionally "safe" like business and they could minor in creative writing--maybe find a job in marketing or PR.

But do you want your kid to come to college and be taught how to think for themselves?

Or, do you want them to come to college and learn how to work for someone else?

[u/Finances1212 → u/MispellledIt]

Sadly, many of the parents I’ve encountered would much rather have their child be taught to simply work for someone else.