The ‘demographic cliff ’ is coming. Colleges must be prepared.
If the Northeast is the epicenter of what scholars have described as a “demographic cliff ” in higher education, Curry College is the type of school that might be at risk of falling off. The “demographic cliff,” a forecasted drop in the number of college-attending students nationwide, is caused primarily by plummeting birth rates around the 2007-2008 recession, which have since continued to decline. That translates into smaller high school classes, although regional impacts vary due to fertility patterns, international immigration, and domestic movement.
New England is expected to be hit particularly hard. The region has long had low fertility rates and has experienced outmigration, with families moving to the South and Southwest in search of cheaper housing, warmer weather, or better job opportunities.
According to Carleton College professor Nathan Grawe, author of “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education,” the number of students attending any postsecondary institution in New England is expected to drop from about 107,800 in 2019 to about 87,700 in 2029. (Grawe predicts the Boston metro area will see a drop from about 60,700 to 51,100 students during that decade.) The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that the number of annual public high school graduates in Massachusetts will drop from around 69,000 before the pandemic to 65,000 in 2030.
New England, with its many colleges, already has high rates of college attendance. The predicted decline would create shock waves. And because colleges are often anchor institutions in their communities, the impacts of turbulence in higher education could do real harm to local economies.
Grawe’s research suggests that elite institutions — selective schools that draw from national applicant pools — will still be able to fill classes with qualified students. Less prestigious four-year colleges and two-year colleges, which tend to draw students living locally, will have the hardest time.
Curry fits that bill. The private liberal arts school in Milton was founded in 1879 and is best known for its nursing studies and program for students with learning disabilities. Enrollment hovers around 2,000, and around three-quarters of its students come from Massachusetts. Curry accepts more than 80 percent of applicants and charges students $45,000 a year, plus room and board.
Yet demographics are not destiny, and colleges that plan ahead might be able to stay a step ahead of the population decline. Ed Cabellon, vice president for enrollment management at Curry College, told the editorial board the school recently concluded that, “We can’t rely on what we’re doing to get where we wanted to go.”
Curry engaged in a rebranding and marketing campaign, modernizing its logo and expanding social media outreach. It began targeted marketing in areas outside Massachusetts, like Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Cabellon said Curry is considering growing programs in business, health science, and STEM, and leaving options open regarding cutting academic programs with low enrollment. It is expanding “stackable credential” programs, enrolling nurses who want to advance to the next professional level and exploring what credentials could help professional advances in fields like data science and renewable energy.
Declining enrollment is problematic because most schools depend heavily on tuition. So when a college has fewer students than it is capable of serving, its finances are impacted. Ernst and Young’s consulting arm EY Parthenon estimated in 2020 that excess capacity at postsecondary schools in the United States is costing schools between $27 billion and $51 billion annually; to cover that deficit, schools often raise tuition or decrease offerings. Schools that are financially unstable are more likely to shut down, hurting enrolled students.
Public two-year colleges in particular are already facing enrollment challenges. Kasia Lundy, a principal at EY Parthenon, told the editorial board that public two-year colleges in Massachusetts had excess capacity of 34 percent in 2021, compared to 17 percent at public four-year colleges and 21 percent at private four-year colleges.
Of course, there are other factors that impact college attendance beyond demographics. First, there is a shift toward online learning. In the 2022-2023 academic year, 53 percent of US college students were taking at least one class online, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Second, more parents and their children have become skeptical about whether college is worth the money. Michael Horn, an author and lecturer on education and cofounder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, said surveys are increasingly showing that parents and students want to make sure college makes financial sense and will lead to a job.
This skepticism seems particularly strong among low-income and Latino families. A fall 2023 poll done for the Education Trust in Massachusetts by MassINC Polling Group found that 57 percent of Massachusetts parents of middle and high school students — but only 37 percent of Latino parents and 26 percent of low-income parents — think their child is interested in starting a bachelor’s degree after graduation. Parents had particular concerns about cost.
And third, a declining percentage of Americans are finding practical value in their degrees. Nationally, a 2018 report from Strada Education Network and Gallup found that the top reason students attended college was to obtain a good job, yet only 26 percent of working Americans with college experience strongly agreed that their education was relevant to their work and daily life.
Restoring faith in higher education, and convincing students and parents that it’s worth the cost, is a long-term challenge for schools. In the meantime, there are four main ways colleges can and should prepare now to address the looming demographic shifts: recruiting new student populations, the way Curry is; doing a better job retaining students; avoiding steep tuition hikes that will scare off potential applicants; and considering budget cuts, partnerships, or mergers.
Recruiting means tapping into new geographic markets, domestically or internationally, and also drawing from growing groups, like Hispanic students or nontraditional types of students, like newly arrived immigrants or adult learners. It may mean expanding early college programs, where high school students take college courses, or opening certificate programs in fields with high demand for workers.
It may mean offering more financial aid. This school year, Massachusetts’ public community colleges experienced an 8 percent growth in enrollment, after a decade of steady enrollment declines. The growth coincided with a boost in available financial aid for community college students — for adult learners, nursing students, and other students entering high-demand professions.
Of course, the easiest place for schools to find students is on their own campuses. Instituting programs to help retain students through graduation benefits both schools and students. This is particularly true at community colleges, where retention rates are around 55 percent, according to the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. Retention can often require expanding services like academic advising, providing connections with food and housing assistance, or offering more flexible academic schedules.
Many schools will likely search for ways to cut budgets, and some will have to consider mergers or partnerships. This could involve acquisitions or agreements to save money by sharing services like human resources.
Ultimately, in cases where recruitment or retention efforts fail, communities may have to accept that there will be school closures. It will be important for state higher education officials to monitor adherence to new protocols and financial reporting requirements put in place after Mount Ida College’s abrupt shuttering in 2018 to ensure these processes are effective in giving students advance notice of a possible closure.
“Each one is painful for students, for faculty, and the community and the college itself,” Lundy said of closures. “To the extent the state can be prepared and supportive, it’s probably better for everyone.” And if colleges want to avoid that fate, they’ll need to do what places like Curry are doing and start planning now.