As an enrollment drop looms, UNC system seeks to draw and retain more students

The University of North Carolina System has uplifted the state and won national acclaim, but demographic and economic shifts are going to make it harder to sustain that achievement and prestige.

Like colleges and universities across the nation, UNC must adjust as the number of high school graduates will decline because of the baby bust brought on by the 2007-2009 Great Recession and a general drop in U.S. fertility rates. Matriculation could fall further as families reconsider the value of a college degree, a tight job market drives up pay for jobs that don’t require a college education and competition grows from online universities.

Those additional concerns may already be taking hold. As of March, applications for federal student aid filed by North Carolina high school students are down by 2,441, a 5.1 percent drop that is among the steepest in the nation. Nationally, in part because of the pandemic, there has been an 8 percent decline in undergraduate students since fall 2019.

So far, enrollment is up at most of the UNC System’s 16 university campuses. It’s bolstered by more people moving into North Carolina and UNC’s reputation for academic quality at a relatively low cost.

Nonetheless, university leaders see enrollment challenges ahead and are making changes that could shift UNC from its traditional focus on educating young North Carolinians in a campus setting to one that includes more older students taking courses online.

To boost enrollment, the system has raised the cap on out-of-state students at its five historically black universities. It’s proposing changes in the campus funding formula that would reward student retention. And UNC expects to draw more older students by offering online education through Project Kitty Hawk, a nonprofit ed-tech startup launched at a cost of $97 million.

UNC System President Peter Hans said bringing in more online students will educate a wider share of the state’s population and provide another source of revenue. “We’ve got some time to plan ahead and that’s been a good deal of our thinking behind the Project Kitty Hawk effort,” Hans said. “For us to engage with adult learners is critical on multiple levels.”

Expanding UNC’s online offerings will help pay for the university’s traditional functions, Hans said. “If we don’t change with the times, we won’t be as well positioned to support that core mission — teaching, research and public service,” he said

But some are skeptical about whether UNC can compete with online universities, hold down tuition and maintain its historic mission. Johann Neem, a Western Washington University history professor and author of “What’s the Point of College? Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform,” said expanding a traditional university into the online market won’t offset the loss of traditional students.

Neem would rather see universities stay committed to offering a well-rounded education, rather than scrambling to capture the market of people seeking work-related credentials.

“If we need more students with higher education, that does not mean we need more degrees,” he said. “It means we need more students who are highly educated. That doesn’t happen on the cheap.”

Nathan Grawe, a labor economist at Carleton College in Minnesota and author of “The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Change,” agrees with Hans that broadening a university’s outreach can also support its core purpose.

But Grawe said the best approach is for universities to work harder to keep the students they have. UNC’s plan to tie campus funding to student retention may help it to get more out of less. “Better student success and retention numbers are good for students and good for the academic health of the intuition,” Grawe said. “In addition to the financial payoff, these kinds of initiatives also improve the quality of education.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2022 at 4:00 AM.