Remarks Inside Higher Ed, "Tuition discount rates keep climbing to previously unseen levels at private colleges and universities, leaving institutions caught between the need to enroll highly price-conscious students and the squeeze discounting places on the amount of money they end up netting."
Despite trying to buy students with such deep discounts, private higher education has been experiencing enrollment declines. Inside Higher Ed again: "At the same time, many private institutions have experienced declining enrollments. In the new report, 37.5 percent of institutions reported enrollments declined in both their freshman classes and across their entire undergraduate bodies from 2014 to 2015. More than half of institutions, 51.2 percent, reported a decrease in total undergraduate enrollment, and 53.5 percent said freshman enrollment dropped."
Questions looming on the immediate horizon:
1. Is this level of tuition discounting sustainable?
2. What can be done to halt and hopefully reverse enrollment decline?
3. Will private universities need to cut tuition and fees up front?
In the longer term, the real question is whether private higher education is in for a big shake-out. And if the answer is yes, then the next question each of us must ask is, how to we ensure that our private college or university survives this "rationalization" of the industry,
These are questions with which I am wrestling, like so many others at private non-profit schools. In addition to my day job, a book contract with Peter Lang has me pondering these hard questions right now. That's the main reason I started this blog.
The working title of my book is "Riding the Fifth Wave." This was drawn from an article I published a number of years ago in University Planning and reproduced on this blog.
Trouble is, we all can articulate the problem. Answers come a bit harder. In the next few months I will be trying to work out some of these answers on this blog and in my book manuscript. I hope you will follow along.
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