Where have all the students gone?: Western Pa. colleges struggle with declining enrollment

Oct. 26—Colleges across the region, ranging from the University of Pittsburgh to local community colleges, are mirroring troubling national trends in enrollment.

In a development experts say could lead to gaps in the workforce and affect the nation's economic health for years to come, college enrollment is down overall for the second year in a row. Only highly competitive schools like Pitt have rebounded from last year's enrollment declines — though their bump barely made a dent in national numbers.

A preliminary report released Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse showed a 3.3% decline in enrollment nationally. That comes on top of last year's drop of 3.2%, bringing the total two-year decline to 6.5% nationally.

"If it were to hold up, it would be a largest decline in 50 years in the United States, by a factor of two," said Doug Shapiro, CEO of the National Student Clearinghouse, a Herndon, Va.-based nonprofit.

The decline was sharpest at community colleges and regional four-year public universities that serve as economic drivers in their communities as well as an entry portal to higher education and workforce training for millions of students.

Those findings line up with numbers at the 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. They reported enrollment declines of 5.4% this fall after a drop of 1.8% in 2020.

'Don't see the future'

An enrollment decline of about 11% in the state's community colleges in 2020, coupled with a decline of about 9% this fall, should be setting off alarms across the state, said Elizabeth Bolden, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges, which represents the state's 15 community colleges.

"Both local employers and fellow postsecondary institutions rely on the pipeline of workers and transfer students produced by community colleges," she said. "The consequences of what this decline could mean for the commonwealth are alarming."

The community colleges in Allegheny, Butler and Westmoreland counties all reported a second year of enrollment declines — though, for the most part, those declines are somewhat smaller this year than in 2020. Preliminary numbers at Butler and Allegheny suggest a decline of about 8% this fall, while Westmoreland County Community College reported a preliminary enrollment decline of about 5.6%.

But in a region where employers are still going begging for entry-level workers, the continuing declines have left college officials asking: Where have all the students gone?

"It's hard to know what's going on. We're living in unprecedented times," said G. Case Willoughby, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Butler County Community College. "We're hearing from high school counselors and principals and our admissions staff that current students don't see the future. Aside from the uber-elite students, they're not engaging about college."

Community colleges serve many older students. The average age for community college students — 26 — falls in the middle of the 25-to-29-year-old age group that saw the greatest declines in college enrollment, the Clearinghouse study found. Shapiro said enrollment declines were smaller among those aged 18-24 and those older than 29.

Some speculate job losses, difficulty finding child care and the need to be home when public schools sent students to remote learning all played into decisions among would-be nontraditional students.

State Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-West View, serves as minority chair of the Senate Education Committee. She said finances undoubtedly played a role in making college a harder reach for those in lower income levels. She said the state's failure to boost its support for community colleges has forced students to shoulder a greater burden.

But other factors, as seemingly insignificant as the elimination of a bus route, also may have held some back, Williams said. She noted that the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which discontinued some routes during the pandemic, only recently reinstated a line that runs to CCAC's North Campus in McCandless.

Will they come back?

Some speculate a general anxiety spurred by on-again, off-again pandemic surge has left many adrift in uncertainty.

"I think what we're seeing reflects the unease of what's going on," said Sydney Beeler, vice president of enrollment management at WCCC.

She said officials have worked to offer a variety of options, including in-person, online and hybrid options to meet student needs. Nonetheless, she said admissions officers have noticed an increase in students applying to college, then failing to move forward with their applications.

"We're coming out of a pandemic, and sometimes when you're coming out of something it's hard to make a decision," she said. "But we will continue to try to meet students where they live and we'll be here when they come back."

At CCAC, officials say they are heartened to see that numbers for dual enrollment — high school students taking college classes while they are finishing their secondary education — are increasing. They're up 17% over the last four years. Workforce programs with paid apprenticeships also remain a strong draw.

Reflecting national trends that saw highly competitive universities thriving in the drought, Pitt — which typically turns away hundreds of talented high school students at its Oakland campus — rebounded this year. Its largest-ever freshman class — 4,927 students, which is a 14.6% increase from last year — helped swell enrollment at Pitt's main campus from 26,435 last year to 29,238.

Ongoing declines in enrollment, which started several years earlier, continued at Pitt's regional campuses in Johnstown, Greensburg, Bradford and Titusville. The enrollment increase in Oakland, however, more than offset those decreases.

Fall enrollment figures for Penn State and Carnegie Mellon University are not available yet.

Officials at smaller private colleges and universities in the region are reporting a range of fluctuations in enrollment.

At Seton Hill University in Greensburg, enrollment fell from 1,995 in 2019 to 1,975 in 2021 after a slight bump in 2020 to 2,013. At Saint Vincent College in Unity, enrollment slipped from 1,560 in 2019 to 1,430 this fall.

Elsewhere, both Robert Morris University in Moon and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh's Uptown neighborhood saw larger declines.

At Duquesne, where officials are planning to add a new osteopathic medical school, total enrollment slipped from 9,260 in 2019 to 8,333 this fall.

Robert Morris took an even larger hit proportionally, when enrollment slipped from 4,608 in fall 2019 to 3,783 in September. But university spokesman Jonathan Potts said officials were encouraged to see an uptick in transfer enrollment as well as a 21% increase in freshman enrollment this fall.

At the National Student Clearinghouse, Shapiro said it is troubling that officials still aren't seeing what many predicted would be an outsized rebound in enrollment this year due to those who took a year off returning after the worst of the pandemic.

"The biggest question is when, if ever, will some of the students we've lost over the last two years start coming back?" Shapiro said. "Will they be able to get back into the educational pipeline? It's really important to our workforce and the future."

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .