UHart debate is about more than college sports divisions
Proposal to switch to DIII involves future of a school with big financial challenges
Behind the ongoing debate over whether the University of Hartford should move its athletic program from Division I to Division III lies a university whose enrollment issues, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, threaten to undermine its future.
Enrollment had dropped at UHart even before the 2020-21 school year, numbers from the school indicate, a product of the university’s struggle to compete for a declining pool of college applicants. The result, industry observers say, has been a decline in tuition revenue that has strained the campus and forced cuts.
It is against that backdrop that UHart, led by president Gregory Woodward, commissioned a report on potential paths forward for the athletic department — a report that ultimately recommended the school save money by moving to Division III.
The study has drawn outrage from current and former UHart athletes who argue that sports bring value to a university beyond dollars and cents, as well as from critics who say the report may overstate the potential savings from a move to Division III. Dozens of students marched through campus Monday to advocate against the proposed change, while hundreds of alumni have signed petitions demanding that the school remain in Division I.
Advocates of shifting to Division III
say UHart should focus as many resources as possible on its academic mission, rather than continue to underwrite a relatively modest Division I sports program.
Either way, the broader issues facing the school are undeniable and inescapable, say those who follow the university closely, including former administrators.
“The real problem at the university is that they have declining enrollment, and because of declining enrollment they have declining revenue,” says Michael Gargano, a former administrator at UHart and elsewhere who now counsels university boards of trustees. “And it is impacting all operations, of which athletics is a small part of it.”
Since news of the report was leaked in early April, Woodward has remained largely silent. A UHart spokesperson said senior university leadership would not be made available for interviews.
Declining enrollment
Like many colleges, the University of Hartford has seen its enrollment decline sharply in recent years — a trend that began long before the pandemic. According to figures from the university’s factbook, undergraduate enrollment dropped about 14% from the fall of 2015 to the fall of 2020, and total enrollment was down about 6.5% during that period.
That means UHart currently has about 700 fewer undergraduates and about 450 fewer students overall, than it did just six years ago. In other words, fewer paying customers and likely less revenue.
“For tuition-driven universities like the University of Hartford, any decline in student enrollment creates a crisis,” Gargano said.
This decline has various potential explanations. Water Harrison, who served as UHart’s president from 1998-2017, noted that the number of college-aged students in the region has declined in recent years and that spending power among those families has declined due to widening inequality.
“This is a challenge all colleges and universities face, not just the University of Hartford,” he said. “Fewer kids college-aged in the Northeast, and the ones who are college-aged come from families with lower incomes than the comparable number would have come from 10 years ago.”
With declining demand, UHart’s acceptance rate has increased in recent years, now standing at 76%, according to U.S. News. The typical accepted student has an SAT score between 1030 and 1230 or an ACT between 22 and 27.
Jennifer Widness, president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, pointed to a recent study showing Connecticut was one of the only states to experience a decline in annual college graduates from 2013-18, as neighboring states showed only modest increases.
This trend is expected to worsen in coming years. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projected late last year that the number of new high school graduates in New England will drop 12.5% by 2037, limiting the pool of applicants for regional schools like UHart.
Already, the United States as a whole has seen an increase in college closures, which analysts attribute to stagnant middleclass wages and a workforce that emphasizes technical training over liberal-arts education.
Gargano, though, says UHart’s issues can’t be blamed entirely on shifting demographics and broader industry headwinds, noting that other Connecticut schools have not experienced such significant dips in enrollment.
“Students are going to UConn, they are going to Central Connecticut, they’re going to Southern Connecticut, they’re going to Sacred Heart, they’re going to Fairfield, they’re going to all these other universities,” he said. “So to say there are no students, that hypothesis would not hold water.”
Data from the state Office of Higher Education shows enrollment in recent years has held steady at schools such as Fairfield, Sacred Heart and the University of New Haven, but has dropped at others, including some of Connecticut’s public universities.
One solution to declining enrollment is to lower admission standards or discount tuition. But Gargano says the university should instead seek to improve its academic programming.
“They have to improve the quality of the academic experience,” he said.
In an email Saturday, UHart spokesperson Molly Polk said the university faced challenges, including “heavy competition, a declining number of traditional-aged prospective students, and continued concerns about the cost of college and the impact of student debt.”
Polk said the school had undertaken $27.5 million in capital improvements in recent years, building several new buildings and expanding or renovating others.
“Our Board and leadership recognize the need to continue to make intentional investments in our students and in areas like access and affordability, in-demand academic programs, residential life facilities and experiences, athletics, student support services, health and wellness, and career preparation,” she said.
COVID problems
Whatever issues UHart had before the COVID-19 pandemic have likely been exacerbated since, as enrollment has dropped sharply and expenses have piled up.
And although these dynamics might improve as the coronavirus fades, the pandemic could have a lasting impact. Moody’s Investor Service reported in December that the higher education sector’s 2021 outlook “remains negative,” projecting that operating revenue at colleges nationwide will be down 5-10% this year.
“All colleges and universities have had their finances severely strained by the pandemic,” Harrison said. “Some institutions are doing OK, but many, many institutions are struggling.”
Though many colleges, including UHart, have received federal aid as part of recent relief packages, that money is not intended to fully offset pandemic-related losses.
English professors Bryan Sinche and William Major had seen cuts across the university long before the pandemic.
Major watched theater programming disappear within UHart’s Hillyer College, where he chairs the English Department. Sinche is currently chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages, which used to be three different departments until cuts within the past decade forced them to merge. That means he oversees not only the study of English but also the study of Spanish, French and other languages.
Then came the pandemic, when Woodward initiated furloughs and eventually layoffs to offset revenue declines. The results, Sinche said, were painful.
“You have long-serving and quality employees who were let go for purely budgetary reasons as part of the crisis,” Sinche said. “Certainly a lot of those people could still be there if different decisions were made.”
Sports under fire
Given these challenges, the athletic department may seem ripe for significant cuts — and some believe UHart’s future would best be served by investing in improved academics instead of supporting Division I sports.
Sinche said he’s glad to see that corner of the university — which may be untouchable at some schools — coming under scrutiny. Given the passion often surrounding athletics, blowback to the prospect of moving to Division III was predictable.
“I appreciate that people are thinking about the budget in its totality instead of taking certain parts of the university and saying, ‘These are sacrosanct and we can’t touch them,’ “he said. “Because from my point of view, other parts of the university should be held even more sacrosanct.”
Michael Leeds, a sports economist at Temple University, said plenty of schools have begun to cut back their athletic departments, whether that means eliminating sports or dropping levels.
“I can’t blame them, quite frankly,” he said. “Unless you are in a major conference with big-time football, there’s a good chance you’re going to lose money.”
UHart is relatively small for a Division I school, ranking in the bottom quartile of total enrollment, including last in its conference.
Others, however, question whether moving from Division I to Division III would truly solve UHart’s problems. A new report commissioned by advocates of the school remaining in Division I accuses the original UHart report of overstating the true savings the school might derive from shifting divisions, echoing arguments from several industry figures.
Meanwhile, defenders of the athletic program argue that shifting to Division III would diminish exposure, school spirit and fundraising. They say the men’s basketball team’s first NCAA Tournament appearance last month could be a jumping-off point for engaging alumni.
“I know so many people who have regained interest in the university simply because of the joy of seeing the team play on TV for two and a half hours,” said Bob Chernak, a consultant who was involved in UHart’s initial decision to join Division I in the 1980s.
The university’s report, conducted by CarrSports Consulting, noted “potential public relations issues with moving to Division III,” and Chernak said the effect in that area could be dramatic.
“It gives the appearance of a major retreat to a lot of your alumni and donors,” Chernak said.
Harrison said he’d prefer to see the university look for places across the university where expenses might be trimmed before resorting to more dramatic action.
“Are there places here where we can economize? It doesn’t matter whether it’s a school or college or the library or residence halls or facilities or athletics,” he said. “And then if that doesn’t work, they can demonstrate that they gave it the old college try.”
The future of UHart’s athletic department could be determined at an upcoming Board of Trustees meeting, when advocates on both sides of the Division I vs. Division III dispute will have their say.
To Gargano, however, the debate about sports is beside the point. The university, he says, faces deep, fundamental issues regardless of what level its teams play at.
“The issue here is not athletics,” Gargano said. “Unless they address the enrollment and the revenue that comes from enrollment, then you can’t solve any of the problems this institution has.”