Jonathan Fansmith, Asst. VP of Government Relations at American Council on Education, talks about the factors attributing to lower college enrolments and what institutes are doing to incentive attendees. 

Opening Bell

Report Shows Total College Enrollment Drops by 4.1% From Last Semester 

here to discuss all of this as Jonathan fan smith, assistant vice president of government relations at the American Council of Education. Thank you so much for being here. But you got to start off by talking to us about these factors attributing to lower college enrollment. What do you think? It is? Sure? I mean, there's a lot of factors and like many things involving higher education, it's a complicated mix of a lot of different factors. You certainly mentioned uh, the value proposition of higher education and our students thinking about is the return worth it. And I think that's a reasonable question to ask. Uh, certainly we have seen these enrollment declines, but these enrollment declines weren't specific to the pandemic. We are in a decade in which enrollments have been declining generally. So the numbers are certainly starker than we thought. And I think certainly everyone in higher education was hoping to see as we tend to emerge from the pandemic or rebound in some of these numbers. So these are obviously very disappointing, very concerning. But even across that there's a lot of factors that you think could explain this particularly, you see the biggest enrollment drops our community colleges. We tend to see that whenever the economy is good, community colleges tend to have a large number of students who are balancing uh, the economic return on higher education versus an immediate job opportunity. And in the labor market we have now where there are a lot of good employment opportunities. This is again, historically, something we've seen, you tend to see students for growing community colleges and going into the job force when the economy turns down, there's less job availability, they might go back to higher education and improve their skills and marketability. There's other factors to you've certainly seen. The NSC report talked about enrollment declines, particularly in the Northeast and the midwest. Again, those are patterns we've seen over a while that there's declining population, declining high school age population. So it's not unexpected to see that you're seeing drops in those areas that actually follows general demographic patterns totally removed from the pandemic. Well, let's just hope that not all of these people think they're going to be social media influencers, and that's not why they're going to school, but seriously don't. I know, right. Does the decline indicate an underlying question among students. Whether, you know, college is the ticket to a good paying job after graduation or not? Yeah, I mean, I think every student and family should be thinking about why they're going into higher education, what they're hoping to get from it. Certainly, that economic return is part of the calculation, but it would make a lot of sense for students to think very thoughtfully about why they're entering higher education, what they hope to get from it, what they think those economic returns are. I think that is a possible explanation for some of the enrollment declines, but we're talking about The choice of 17 million people are making, they make them for a whole variety of reasons. One of the things that's kind of interesting and counterintuitive about this data is there's actually growth in the number of first time freshmen students. So to the extent that people are making that decision, at least it looks like the rebound is, people are more interested in entering college than they have been through the pandemic. That part of it is a very positive development. Um, there are some real concerns about equity. The largest drop in percentage by race was black students and that was a six and a 1/2% drop. You know, we have made a lot of gains over the last 30 years in improving equity across higher education. So to see populations of students that, you know, generally are most at risk the decline in their enrollment. That's a huge concern. I think for colleges, universities, we want to have the drop in enrollment is a real concern regardless. But particularly when you start to splice out which are the populations that you're seeing it most among, erases some bigger questions about what we have to do. Yeah, definitely. Some work to be done there. How do you think the remote work atmosphere and the current job market is influenced in college enrollment? Yeah. And I touched on this a little bit before. I think the job market being what it is unemployment at, you know, rates as low as they've been in the last 50 years. Certainly a lot of people, particularly, you're going to, you know, community colleges are seeking, you know, trade specific educational opportunities. They are making those choices about what's the economic return to them. And right now with a really tight job market, with better and better opportunities out there at higher pay as some players are competing to recruit people, uh, that does provide a pretty effective counterbalance to the appeal of going to higher education and improving your job skills. Again, lots of students making lots of decisions for lots of reasons. But you know, I think the numbers bear that out. If you look at where the enrollments, enrollments have dropped the most. It is, I think that economic poll is, it's those students who are weighing those options equally. Yeah. And speaking of the numbers you got take into consideration all the debt. A lot of these students are coming out of college with and may not even have a job to pay off that debt. So how is that debt loan affecting the decision for people to go to college and inquire all that debt? Yeah. And and you know, we're hearing a lot about debt, Right? And the President's talking about forgiving student loan debt. This is a huge issue in the news. And, you know, students who are contemplating that choice are already enrolled and thinking about what their options are and are thinking about the debt. They may have to take on to do that. Uh, you know, some of the narrative about this gets a little bit overblown as to, you know, what are the actual ways students can afford higher education, how they can finance it? But it's totally reasonable for people. Look at, you know, what are my opportunities? What are the, what are the costs associated with that? Do I want to take on debt to do what I'm doing? In most cases, law students will look at it and say yes, it's absolutely worth it. But, you know, it, does it raise the question in people's mind? Absolutely. Okay, So what are some of the things that universities are doing or can do to incentivize, eyes these uh, new applicants to come in? Yeah. And and, and schools have been very attentive throughout the pandemic in particular. There's a lot of concern about losing students, particularly because we know, especially among the most at risk populations, that if they stop out, if they drop out, they may never come back. So schools have been very aggressive on pricing, They've been developing programs, there's been a lot of assistance made available through the federal government through the different relief bills that were provided that was directed directly to students are used to support programs to support students. I think schools are doing a lot in terms of trying to make sure that their students are supported are able to return, keeping costs as low as possible. Addressing those concerns about the return on the investment. But, you know, again, individual rules are making individual choices. There are concerns about, you know, are you getting the same collegiate experience schools are returning in person. But you know, as we've seen, there are people who have attended and are stepping away for a while. They may come back. We certainly hope they do. But schools I think are looking very carefully at what are they looking for. How do we keep them going and particularly those price point calculations? How do we ensure that students see higher education is affordable? Yeah, A lot of big decisions need to be made out there. All right, thank you so much, Jonathan fan smith, Assistant vice president of governmental relations at the American Council on Education.