Here’s an intriguing mystery for all you sleuths out there: In a little more than a decade, 45,000 students disappeared from Michigan’s 15 state universities.
Where did they go?
That question intrigued Matthew Miller, a reporter on MLive’s statewide reporting team who decades earlier in his career had been a higher education writer for another publication. And that quest to find out what caused a massive enrollment decline led to a thorough and insightful package of stories about the impacts on the schools, students and institutional priorities.
The answer to the big question is not as eerie as a “Twilight Zone” episode – no students were harmed in the unfolding of this mystery. But Miller uncovered many culprits, some of them societal (declining birth rates) and some of them all too familiar (COVID pandemic).
“Looking at the sheer size of the drops at some of these schools … I mean, you can't really paste over it with a tuition increase. You have to start making changes that impact the heart of the institution,” Miller said. “I really wanted to know what that was going to look like, and I don't think we've seen the full consequences.”
Miller’s investigation and resulting stories went in both directions: Examining the causes, and the effects. It was chock full of interesting findings – for instance, that not all universities are suffering the same.
Since 2011, the University of Michigan has grown by about 9,500 students, Michigan State University has held steady (and just added 11,000 new undergraduates this fall, a record) and Michigan Tech is up slightly in enrollment.
The other 12 universities? They’ve combined to lose 55,000 head count in enrollment in the past 11 years. Central Michigan University has been hit the hardest, losing one-third of its student body, closing four dorms and laying off roughly a third of its faculty outside of the medical school.
“So, they're looking at a future where they're simply not as big. And part of the problem is that there's really no good model for how you make a college campus smaller,” Miller said.
Other richly reported findings from Miller:
Retention is critical: With fewer students in the pipeline, schools like Wayne State University are focusing resources on improving student support in order to increase graduation rates. “The easiest student to recruit to your campus is one who is already on your campus,” he notes.
Don’t expect discounts: Enrollment may be down, but tuition is likely not to follow. For one, the state of Michigan dramatically cut funding to state universities in 2011 and that has not come back. Second, many schools are spending more on administration – such as funding student support services in order to improve retention and be competitive with other institutions.
Schools fight for identity: Miller says that universities are seeking to make themselves stand out with unique programs and market those differences in competition for new students. For instance, Eastern Michigan University has expanded offerings in engineering.
“One of the consultants I talked with said the schools that are successful are the ones who are going to think carefully about their identity – what's the unique experience that they're offering to students that they're not going to get elsewhere?”
Closings or mergers are not likely: Some states, such as Georgia, have successfully merged state schools. Miller said what is more likely is akin to what is happening at CMU – reduction in staff sizes, building closures, retrenching.
And while we all like a good mystery, what comes next won’t be mystical or surprising – just challenging for most state universities.
“Nobody really expects any of Michigan's public universities to close – it's just going to require some hard priority setting,” Miller said. “Schools are going to have to think about ‘Who do we want to be’ and make choices that follow from that even if they're not easy.”
🎧 Prefer to listen to your journalism while cooking or commuting? Try listening to John Hiner's Behind the Headlines podcast each week. It's free! Just click here for Spotify or here for Apple podcasts to listen to this week's episode with Miller on the massive declines in college enrollment and what can be done about it (if something should be done about it). You can also find Behind the Headlines wherever you get your podcasts!
###
John Hiner is the vice president of content for MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer, or topics to explore, share your thoughts at [email protected].
