Edinboro sees signs of hope amid declining enrollment
Officials point to acceptance rate, freshman GPA
EDINBORO, Pa. — For years, the state university in this town that prides itself in sports as being the “home of the Fighting Scots” has been locked in a different and less enjoyable struggle, as have many of Pennsylvania’s other state-owned universities.
Edinboro University has too many classroom seats and not enough high school graduates to fill them. Its budgets are lean and getting leaner.
And it must deal with bruising competition from campuses in this state and neighboring ones whose leaders know a bit about population loss, too, and aren’t shy about poaching students through steep tuition discounts.
But as the State System of Higher Education’s new chancellor, Daniel Greenstein, took an introductory tour Wednesday of Edinboro, the campus at least could point to encouraging signs that leaders are righting the ship, even as the school sustained another sharp enrollment drop this fall of 13 percent.
Edinboro so far has made good on a promise from a couple years back to become more selective, accepting 81 percent of its freshman applicants this fall versus 92 percent last year and 99 percent in 2014. Freshmen arriving at Edinboro are making it to their sophomore year at greater rates.
And then there’s this: The school last fall had a larger percentage of entering freshmen with at
least a 3.0 grade point average than any of the 13 other state-owned universities.
The next highest were West Chester and Slippery Rock universities, at 83 percent and 82 percent, respectively, according to data provided by the university.
“I think it is turning a corner,” said Edinboro’s interim president, Michael Hannan.
“We’re seeing positive gains in the quality of our students as measured by their high school performance,” he said. “We do get a sense, especially from our admissions counselors, that our academic reputation is rising.”
The question will be whether a school with about 4,800 students that has lost 44 percent of its total enrollment in eight years can sustain those improvements.
Data for this fall is not yet available, but Edinboro spokeswoman Angela Burrows said campus officials are confident that the school again will be among the State System leaders in freshmen with at least a 3.0 grade point average.
Mr. Greenstein, a university educator and former official with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on Wednesday spoke at Edinboro’s Frank Pogue Student Center with a message similar to other speeches he has given since he took office Sept. 4.
He assured the audience of 150 or so that the problems facing the State System, including an 18 percent enrollment drop since 2010 and lagging state support, are not unique among public university systems. He also urged a change of culture within the State System from one marked by distrust to one that can help foster university success that he said is critical to the state’s future.
He said that when he left the Gates Foundation he went shopping for a public university system that encapsulated many of the confounding issues facing the nation’s education systems.
“This is an opportunity to help reimagine the face of public higher education in this country,” he said. “We have the passion, we have the grit, and the sense of urgency to take this on and win.”
But it became clear that some in the room had more immediate concerns, as evidenced by the first questioner, English professor Elisabeth Joyce, who said the previous chancellor left an impression that some schools, including Edinboro, might not survive.
“I still hear from people who think we are going to close,” she said. “What can you say to assure future students and their families that Edinboro will be here in the future?”
Mr. Greenstein responded, “I didn’t come here to close universities. I’m an educator.”
However, he said that while he’s not looking for consolidations, he could not say specifically what a reimagined State System would look like.
Wednesday’s audience included a handful of Edinboro students who use wheelchairs. These students have been trying to get the school to reconsider eliminating a 24/7 attendant care program, which helps them with basic daily needs and has helped make Edinboro prominent nationally in helping students with disabilities.
Responding to a question from one of the students, who call themselves the Sitting Scots, Mr. Greenstein said the decision was a statelevel one, and acknowledged that the change “is very challenging.”
But he said the issue is whether the school can ensure that what replaces it works well. He indicated that he’s confident the school can do that.
He began his remarks on an unusually chilly and blustery day in northwestern Pennsylvania with an explanation of why someone would come across the country from California to lead a system facing such difficult issues.
“The answer obviously is because of the weather outside today,” he said, drawing laughter.