Higher Ed Enrollment Crisis—Strategic Solutions and Expert Analysis:

Changing Higher Ed podcast 242 with Drumm McNaughton, Bob Massa, and Bill Conley

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed Podcast 242

[00:00:20] Introduction to Changing Higher Ed®

David: Welcome to Changing Higher Ed®, a podcast dedicated to helping higher education leaders improve their institutions. With your host, Dr. Drumm McNaughton, CEO of The Change Leader, a consultancy that helps higher ed leaders holistically transform their institutions. Learn more at changinghighered.com. And now, here’s your host, Drumm McNaughton.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, David.

[00:00:40] Meet the Experts: Bill Conley and Bob Massa

Drumm McNaughton: Our guests today are Bill Conley and Bob Massa from Enrollment Intelligence Now. My listeners may remember that we’ve had Bill and Bob on a couple of previous shows where we talked about enrollment and some of the challenges that are going on. Since retiring from Bucknell University, Bill’s partnered with his longtime friend, Bob, who’s a former Dean of Enrollment at Johns Hopkins, to assist universities in overcoming their enrollment challenges, especially how things have changed in the COVID era and post COVID. What institutions must be thinking about to ensure their enrollment meets their goals and needs going forward.

Bill and Bob join me today to talk about the recent report from WICHE, what’s going on in higher ed enrollment, and why it’s important for institutions to change how they’re doing business in this new normal.

 Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.

Bob Massa: Thanks so much for having us.

Bill Conley: Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Drumm.

Drumm McNaughton: I’m looking forward to our conversation. Every time we get a chance to talk, my learning IQ goes up probably 140 percent each time. Well, gentlemen. Like I say, this is probably the third or fourth time we’ve had you on the show.

[00:01:56] The Enrollment Cliff: Background and Context

Drumm McNaughton: You are the definitive enrollment experts, at least in my mind, before we get into our topic for today, which really is talking about the demographic cliff or The Enrollment Cliff or whatever folks are calling it. Give us a little bit of your backgrounds. Let us know what your experience is because I’m always amazed when I hear it.

Bob Massa: Thanks, Drumm. Start. Again, my name is Bob Massa. I started in higher education admissions and financial aid; I think in the 1800s. It’s been a long time. Started in 1974 at Columbia University in the graduate school and spent some time at Colgate University and Union College. Became the Dean of Enrollment at Johns Hopkins University in 1989, and went over, ten years later, to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as their VP for Enrollment. And a couple of others prior to retirement but that’s basically my pedigree. I have a doctorate in higher education from Columbia and, looking back on a 45-year career on a college campus as an admission, enrollment leader. Gosh, I wouldn’t have changed anything. I’m grateful for the time that I’ve had and certainly grateful for having us on this broadcast today.

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you. Bill?

Bill Conley: Thank you, Drumm Bob, when he mentioned Colgate, we have a little inside joke that when he worked at Colgate, I was an undergraduate there. Which makes people think there’s a big age difference, but in fact, it’s about eight months. I was a little slow getting out, but I started my career in 1980 after getting a master’s at Harvard University and was at Lafayette College, Drew University, Case Western Reserve University, and followed Bob by a year or so as the Dean of Enrollment at Johns Hopkins University and finished my career at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 2020. And it was in that summer of 2020 that Bob and I formally founded Enrollment Intelligence Now, and have been working with over 20 clients over the last four years and always enjoy the opportunity to talk data and interpretation of that.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, thank you gents. You guys knew each other in part of your employment, correct?

Bill Conley: We never overlapped per se. We did have some common stops along the way. This is the first time we’ve actually been working together.

Bob Massa: We’ve worked together on projects for the national association of college admissions counseling. Not that this is something that your listeners have to know, but in 1989 I tried to recruit Bill to Johns Hopkins. I’d become the Dean of Enrollment, I tried to recruit him to become Director of Admissions and darn, he decided to take the Dean’s job at Case Western.

But he came back 11-12 years later and became the Dean at Hopkins. So, we’ve known each other for a long time and respect each other’s work and we’ve traveled together. We’ve recruited together, we’ve done, workshops together, and now, since 2020, we’ve been, together as co-consultants and co-founders of Enrollment Intelligence Now.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, it’s nice to have colleagues like this. I’ve, a few of them that I work with as well, who can finish your sentences for you. So, thank you for that introduction, really appreciate it, and it’s nice to get to know you both as people as well as you’re being enrollment counselors and consultants.

[00:05:27] Insights from the WICHE Report

Drumm McNaughton: So just recently, WICHE came out with their annual report about enrollment. It doesn’t sound good but, in our conversation, you helped me put it in context. So, gents, if you would, let’s put this in context and then drive down details on what’s actually going on and what presidents and enrollment VPs can do about it.

Bob Massa: Great. Well, I’m sure that most, listeners have either read, the report or summaries of it in the Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed or other higher ed news sources. The report is called Knocking at the College Door, and it’s something that WICHE, the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, has published every four years for just about as long as Bill and I have been in this profession. And it’s, I think, one of the most reliable and thoughtful analyses of college enrollment trends, NCES and the Clearinghouse notwithstanding, WICHE is one of the top.

So according to them, we’re not going to see much of an enrollment cliff, a great decline all of a sudden, a drop off in high school grads and college enrollment, as much as we’ll see a graduate, but I would say significant decline from a high of about 3.9 million high school graduates this year in 2025, to a low of about, I don’t know, 3.6-3.65, something like that in 2030, and then just below 3.4 million in 2040. So that’s about a 13 point drop over, 15-year period. And it’s important to put that in context though, as you suggested, Drumm. So in 2010, when Bill and I were still active enrollment managers, there were just under 3.4 million high school graduates. If we think back to that time, in 2006, 2007, 2008, we were warned about this little decline from about 3.5 to about 3.4 million high school grads, a little under 3.4 million, in 2009, but I would say that most colleges, most selective colleges, successfully adapted to that. As they did, frankly, in other minor turn downs that we have experienced, Bill and I have experienced, in our careers in the late 70s and in the early 90s in particular.

So colleges were somehow able to through expanding their course offerings, looking at different populations, never retrenchment, not in those times, always expansion, but they were able to make it through and to make it through well. But this time though, a combination of this, you know, the increasing list price, how much parents and students think it’s going to cost, and a decline in the perception of the value of a college degree. Even though I would say that net price to students today is less than it was 10 years ago. Let me say that again. Net price to students today is less than it was 10 years ago in 2024 dollars. That has resulted in a decline in the percentage of high school graduates going on to college. That in and of itself hasn’t resulted in it, but the perception of the price has resulted in that.

Drumm McNaughton: When you talk about net price, what do you mean?

Bob Massa: I mean the price that students actually pay after financial aid.

Drumm McNaughton: So, this is discount rates, scholarships, et cetera.

Bob Massa: What does that mean? It means that colleges and universities are actually deriving less revenue as a result. So, obviously, big inflation over the last several years, but if you translate what was happening in 2014, in terms of college prices, into today’s prices, it’s costing students less. And that’s according to NCES statistics. So, combination of the lower numbers of high school grads and the declining percentage of those that go on to college is going to hurt many colleges and universities in their quest to actually recruit traditional age students.

But I would just say one other thing. These national statistics hide some details.

[00:09:29] Demographic Shifts and Their Impact on Enrollment

Bob Massa: So there are five states in the WICHE data that are hit the hardest in terms of the decline in high school graduates. And they account, this is incredible, they account for over 75 percent of the decline nationwide. California, which is a surprise to me because I, heretofore, thought that was a growth state, but it’s not. Illinois. Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania. And these happen to be states with a large number of private, nonprofit colleges. Some places, you look at New York State, Columbia and NYU, you look at Pennsylvania, Penn and a small college like Swarthmore, they’re not going to have to worry too much about the demographic story, but many others are going to need to tighten their belts and focus on what they do well and provide real evidence of value in order to survive.

Bill Conley: And, for further context, it was interesting, I think there’s going to be, for the leadership listening to this podcast, a kind of Groundhog Day approach, like, haven’t we heard this before? I pulled up the 2013 WICHE report, which was titled The Pupil Cliff. The 2014 was a long way down The Enrollment Cliff. Now, what was interesting to Bob’s point about 2010, they pointed out that in 2014, there’d be 3.3 million college students, and it would begin to grow gradually in 2020. Which is what we saw a little bit of increase that brought us up to 3.4 million.

Bob Massa: You’re talking about high school graduates though,

Bill Conley: High school

Bob Massa: Yeah, not college students.

Bill Conley: Which feeds the colleges, right?

But they pointed out, but that increase was not nearly at the rate seen from 1990 to 2011. So what we’re seeing is, if any rebound, it was very gradual and not in the, to Bob’s point, not at the growth rate. And the president of WICHE at the time said the quote unquote, “the growth agenda is essentially over.”

And I think that’s going to be a theme later when we talk about how you respond. Yes, Princeton, MIT, and some others might grow in response, but that’s not going to be an option for 99%. But to put a little more clarity, Bob pointed out the regional differences and these are significant.

 Folks in higher ed making big decisions, recruiting students have to localize these data and, Western, because of California, a drop of 20%. This is between 2025 and 2041. The Midwest 16 percent decline, Northeast 17 percent decline. And, as Bob said, the five states that represent 75 percent of that decline.

What’s really interesting, the white population in this time period will drop 26%.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow,

Bill Conley: Now the Hispanic population will go up 16%. But let me just observe two things. The end for the white population is it will drop from 1. 6 million to 1. 2 million, the 16 percent increase is a growth from 940,000 to 1.1 million.

Drumm McNaughton: That’s, big differences.

Bill Conley: And so, for many of the traditional liberal arts colleges, which have been predominantly white institutions, mainly because of the regional population. So, the big end is the white population, but the black population will drop 22%. Even the Asian population is dropping 10%. So, we’re talking about significant differences.

And the one other thing that we would point out is gender which is buried in this. But the Pew report came out almost the day later talking about the change from 1990 to 2024 in undergraduate enrollment. Just as an example, in 1995, 29 percent of people between the age of 25 and 34, 29 percent were female, 29 percent were male. In 2025, that percentage is now 52 percent female, 42 percent male.

Bob Massa: Having college degrees.

Bill Conley: Having college degrees, good news, more college degrees,

The gap and it’s represented in all of the subset in gender, the gap is growing. So when we talk later about solutions, how colleges in their regional focus can address this disparity, between male and female, is in there. So again, that’s masked by the data, but that was just some of the further nuance.

Bob Massa: I would add to that, and Drumm, I’m going to let you get in here and ask a question at some point, but, we’ve been talking about, we’ve been talking about this disparity, in the percentage of women earning college degrees versus men, for the last 25 years. It was very clear in early 2000s, that this was happening.

There was a conference, in I believe 2001, at Morehouse College that I was privileged to participate in, that talked about the dearth of men in higher education. And here we are 20, 25 years later, still talking about the same thing. And to Bill’s point, the gap has grown wider.

So, it’s a lot easier to talk about this stuff than it is to actually do something about it. And I think right now, we’re in a position where we don’t have any choice. We really do have to present the case to young men, in addition to women, but particularly the young men, because much fewer of them are actually going on to higher education, that there is a value here. And that value is going to be far greater than simply going into the workforce from high school.

Bill Conley: We’ll let you ask questions.

Drumm McNaughton: Great, and I do have some questions. Well, that information certainly explains a lot of the differences that come out in the report, but the overall causes, as I understand it, this basically is a result of the great recession and the birth rates changing. Is that still a fair statement?

Bill Conley: Yes. I think, between the Great Recession and the drop of fertility rate then, and we are also specific to what we’re looking at for 2035 to 2040, it’s the birth dearth of COVID. And what we’re also seeing, and it’s been going, not as steep as those two, birth dearth, but a declining number of children being born in the U. S.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah. So with that, we’ve got great recession, which is what we’re hitting now. We’re going to have another one starting in around 2035, 2038, having to do with COVID. So we’re just going to see general declines.

Bill Conley: Yes, and I think the other factor that, well, it was interesting is that, we saw a 5 percent drop in first year enrollment in fall ’24. And it was differences between sectors, the largest percentage drop was in four years, nnonprofit, private. I think Bob as I recall.

Bob Massa: Yeah. Over 7%.

Bill Conley: Right. And what’s interesting though in that drop is yet high school graduation rates have been going up, relative to the past. So. What is that telling us? It’s telling us that there’s more students choosing not to go directly onto four-year colleges. We also found, surprisingly, that the two-year colleges have been really struggling since COVID. And you would have thought, well, that’s where they’re going, for the cost issue or whatever, but if they’re not showing up at 4 years, they’re not showing up at 2 years immediately after high school, where are they doing?

We think they’re pursuing employment, short term certification programs, and what I call the universe of post-secondary education, which we often think is college and university, but it is a full arrangement. So, I think we’re seeing a significant decline in the percentage going directly on to four year colleges, which takes the bite out of that higher number graduating with a high school degree.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah. Now, is there a higher number graduating? Is the percentage of people graduating higher? The overall numbers are dropping because of the birth rate though, correct?

Bob Massa: That’s right. That’s

Bill Conley: That’s correct. But within that, as a percentage, they’re growing in high school, but it’s not being translated into a representative increase in 1st year enrollment. And that’s where, I think the issue of student debt, Bob pointed out the elephant in the room, which is the declining perception of the value of higher education.

And is that the males who disproportionately large numbers do not go straight on to college? And are they more susceptible to the message of the quick dollar, for an employment opportunity and forgo the investment to earn more over a lifetime. So I think those things are coming into play.

Bob Massa: There was a book that was written, gosh, probably 14 or so years ago now, I think 2010, by a journalist named Richard Whitmore, and the book is called Why Boys Fail. And I would commend that to your listeners, Drumm, because it really looks at some of the underlying factors of education for young boys, young men, and basically why it’s not working in terms of going on to further education levels.

 His thesis there really is that the perception of education for young men, is that it’s useless. You’re not teaching me real life skills. And I’m not advocating that, high schools should change their curricula as a result of this. But it is a book that I think people would enjoy reading, I think.

Drumm McNaughton: Appreciate that. That does bring up some interesting questions. With this going on the enrollments dropping, etc, obviously, it’s “pipeline in versus pipeline out”, is part of the issue but there’s other factors going into this, i.e. the perception of value of college. You just hit on this Bob, in talking about this book is men don’t feel like they’re really learning anything in that. Higher ed is changing a bit. They’re becoming far more workforce oriented. I think that’s an important thing for them to be doing but you still got this perception because of price, because of cost, the debt, etc. Talk to that just a little bit if you would.

Bob Massa: Well, I think, as I hinted earlier, college is actually less expensive today on the average than it was, 15, 18 years ago. The average net price that students and family paid in 2006 was about $19,000 a year. And the average price today is about $16,500 a year.

Now that doesn’t speak to, the Ivy League and top expensive institutions. The average hides a multitude of sins there, but the fact is that the net price after financial aid is lower. I think that speaks to the fact that we’re not doing a very good job articulating the progress that we’ve made overall in making college affordable.

However, the next step in that is, all right, “what do I get for whatever I’m paying”? Right? And how does that manifest itself into my career afterwards? And I think it’s very clear that the work that colleges can do to help students, either through internships or alumni networking or whatever it is, to actually get a foot in the door, to a job, to a career that is going to be fulfilling. I think that’s absolutely critical.

Colleges and universities that spend a lot of time and a lot of print space and a lot of digital space on career planning, career internships, from day one, once students get there, those are the institutions I think that are going to see their enrollments bolstered as a result.

Bill Conley: I would at a tactical level, I think, I’m concerned that we have been using outmoded semantics. The major one being liberal arts, and the reality is when this basic construct of a four-year undergraduate education was created, the liberal arts included Latin and Greek and math and sciences, et cetera, and it was a reasonably good title for this concept.

I am convinced and I’m, both Bob and I are graduates with liberal arts backgrounds, but to call it that now is an oxymoron. And it’s not just because of the political implications. It’s literally we need, and if you’re a small “liberal arts” college in the Northeast, I would exhort you to think about how you can change your descriptor. Your mission to provide not liberal arts, but an education, as Bob worked at Dickinson, they have a “useful education”.

Bob Massa: Yeah, Benjamin Rush,

Bill Conley: Benjamin Rush.

Bob Massa: And that’s 1783, by the way.

Bill Conley: Right. Cause he, he was observing that the liberal arts was a “useful education”.

Drumm McNaughton: Yes. Well, it’s also interesting that, when I look at my own education, I was a physics major for my undergraduate, not that I was particularly smart, but that was what I really enjoyed doing, not only did I have mathematics and science and physics and all these other things, but we also were required to take what we called the bold courses. English, literature, law, different things for a well-rounded education. I think, and previous guests, Jeremy Young from PEN America, he made a great statement, he said, “higher ed needs to combat, as a larger entity, not individual institutions, they need to combat this perception that there isn’t value in a college education”.

We’ve not done a good job with that. You talk about it very well, quote liberal arts, but liberal arts, people have interpreted that to be history, “what are you going to do as a history major?” or

Bob Massa: Philosophy. Right?

Drumm McNaughton: Philosophy. exactly. But there are a lot of good things that you can do with that degree. It needs to be a more balanced degree and preparing people for the workforce, not only their first job, but for their full career to the way they have that inquiry, that gene that says, “Hey, I want to learn more about this”.

Bill Conley: Well, I think the idea has always been that having a college degree, regardless of the major, was primarily a statement that you A- made a commitment. You have follow-through. You have been disciplined to learn in various ways so, I think those are still incredibly valuable, that’s valuable collateral. But again, I agree with the broad, whether it’s association level or whatever, this changing the perception, but I just think every institution must do a better job individually differentiating themselves from the pack and providing data about usefulness. And I would just, again, say that if you continue to use the shorthand of liberal arts, you’re probably creating your own headwind.

Drumm McNaughton: Oh, absolutely.

[00:26:52] Enrollment Strategies for Higher Ed Institutions

Drumm McNaughton: I do want to jump into what presidents and institutions can do about this because there’s a serious situation that is unfolding and there’s going to be more people than not who end up getting run over by it.

Bill Conley: Yeah. And I think Bob has always some wonderfully well thought out and strong positions on the solution set. Let me just simply remind listeners that there’s not a universality of application to these solutions. In our mind, there are three clusters in higher education.

You have the upper range, and we alluded to them earlier. We have the Ivy plus, about 80 to 90 colleges whose admit rate is south of 15 percent who have high rankings in prestige, a.k.a. U. S. News and World Report, and they’re driven by very high endowments.

We also have a set of what they call public Ivies. University of Michigan, Virginia, Berkeley, UCLA, these institutions are in a very privileged position. Just yesterday, Penn State main campus, where everybody wants to go, State College, and a white out of 100,000 in the football stadium, they want to increase their undergraduate population on that campus. Well, that is going to trickle down and wreck their own branch campuses and their regional publics.

So you’ve got that group and then what I call a growing middle class of institutions, public and private, that at one time had pretty strong admission situations, admitting maybe one out of three, and now they’re out one out of two or three out of four, and they’re discounting 60, 70 percent. And these institutions, public and private, are the ones that, particularly in the Midwest and the Northeast, that are going to have a really hard time addressing this, because they have cultures and expectations that don’t see themselves as middle class.

Bob Massa: Yeah.

Bill Conley: And then the bottom layer, of course, is open enrollment, the community colleges. They still have overhead they have to fund. So these demographics, are concerning for them. But again, each of those groups, I think has a different solution set. Bob?

Bob Massa: Yeah, for the latter two categories, Bill, that you mentioned, the solution is not in growth, right? These institutions are not going to be able to grow. So for those institutions that are selective, you call them the growing middle class, but not Ivy like. And, as well as for those, who are less selective, they’re going to need to look at their historic enrollments, I think, and determine what their right size is.

For example, a small private college that grew from 1700 students in the nineties, to, 2,400-2,500 students, 10 or 15 years later, they’re really going to need to take a good look at what they can serve and how they might reduce their targeted enrollment and their budget back to that 1,700 level. Bill and I always joke about, higher education always adds, never really takes away, never really subtracts. It’s easy to add, it’s much more difficult to cut. And cutting, we’ve always said, you can’t cut your way to excellence, but you need to be realistic about the supply and demand, and bigger is not necessarily better. Especially if you don’t have the revenue to support bigger. Shrinking is going to be painful, because people and programs are going to need to be cut or eliminated, but I guarantee you that is less painful than closing.

Drumm McNaughton: Absolutely. And the one thing I would say that is you can’t cut your way to growth, but you can cut your way to excellence. Because if you start focusing on what it is you’re really good at, which becomes a branding issue, understanding what your customers want, understanding where your excellence is. You can have the institution survive and even thrive. And I always go back to the example of Carnegie Mellon, which back 20-30 years ago was just a routine institution. They decided to focus on tech, and look at them, they’re in the top three in major technology areas. So, it’s that branding and that’s understanding of excellence, I think that is critical for institutions to do.

Bob Massa: Yeah, I think what they’re going to have to do is understand where to cut back, and how to do that in a way that is going to help the institution long term. It’s going to hurt in the short term, and people are going to get hurt in the short term, but again, I would be pretty emphatic in saying that pain is less than the pain of closing.

You don’t see this as much in public institutions, although, if you look at West Virginia University over the last year and what they’ve gone through, and also, the non-Penn State public universities in Pennsylvania where there’s been consolidation.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah. PASSHE.

Bob Massa: the PASSHE group. Yeah, that, again, it is painful. People don’t like it. But it’s a lot less painful than closing. And, the past year there have been only 16 colleges, four-year colleges and universities that have closed, and there are over 2,200 of those institutions, so there’s not a lot. And most of them are small, most of them enroll fewer than 1,000 students, but I would say you’re eligible too. This hasn’t happened to us yet. “Y E T.” You’re eligible too, man. It can happen to you.

So I think we need to be proactive. I think presidents and provosts need to be proactive and not put off what is inevitable and not wait until, they really have to make these cuts, these reductions, these, right-sizing, let me call it that, in order to thrive, not only survive.

Bill Conley: Bob, I was going to say that they really need to follow the data. And when Bob talked about a college that, at one time grew in a growth mode and then has seen annually the enrollment, first year enrollments, go down. That’s not like fiction but I think a lot of colleges keep thinking the turnaround is around the corner. And what I would do, and I don’t know who posed this, made this quote, but I think it tells it all. It says, “If we keep going in the direction we’re going to end up where we’re going.” And when you’re in a decline and all the metrics that feed your, funnel are continuing in decline and your admit rate continues to go up and your yield is going down and your discount is going up. Those are clarion calls for action. And I agree with Bob, to call it what it is and, Gordon Gee called it what it was in West Virginia and that has not been pretty, president at Ohio Wesleyan called it, and it’s not pretty, but they have a fighting chance to, as Graw says, “this is a valley,” but unlike a valley that eventually comes out to a more promising future, we can’t say that’s a promising future, even after 2041.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, we frequently, at The Change Leader, talk about higher ed being in a mature to declining industry. More capacity than there are customers, et cetera. Folks have got to look at this now. They can’t postpone, unless you’re in that highly selective ivy plus area, you’ve got to be looking at this now because you’ve got three choices, or actually four. You have the choice of looking at it now and making potentially painful changes and cuts. You’ve got going out of business, which is not a good option or some sort of merger acquisition consolidation. There really isn’t a whole lot of choices other than those.

Right,

Bill Conley: and I would say, it’s interesting. We saw Hampshire college, and they closed. They said, “nobody come we’re closing”, and they got an infusion of money, and they opened back up,

Bob Massa: Same with Sweetbriar.

Bill Conley: Sweetbriar did the same thing. But that’s a band aid and I think clearly they did it, they closed and it was so painful they opened again, but they’re not on a sustainable pathway now. So, I think it’s hard to be doom and gloom, this is more. These numbers are reality. It is not Groundhog Day again. It is real and those institutions that, and I agree with Bob, I think right-sizing is the way to go forward.

Bob Massa: And I think there, there are other things, certainly, that colleges and universities can do, but I think primarily they have to look at their historical market, look at the projections going forward, and then determine the right enrollment, not to meet their current budget, but the right enrollment that they can recruit and sustain in this declining market, and then develop their programs and budget around that.

All too often institutions, and this has been throughout my career, this is not new, set their budget based on what they want to do, and then try to figure out how to pay for it. And I don’t think that can happen anymore. One other thing certainly is to look at nontraditional students, there’s some I don’t know, depending on who you believe, some 36 million or so former students out there that haven’t completed a college degree. And even if we can get 20 or 25 percent of them to re-enroll and finish their degree, that would make a huge impact on enrollment numbers. But are colleges and universities flexible enough to offer classes when these non-traditional students need them. That would be a major shift for some colleges, but again, faced with the prospect of closing, if they’re unwilling to change some of them might just go after that cohort.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, it’s like, Welsh from GE said, “if the rate of change in the outside of your institution is greater than the rate of change inside, you’re headed for the cliff.”

Bob Massa: Perfect. Yeah. Perfect.

[00:37:42] Three Takeaways for University Presidents, Boards, and Enrollment Executives

Drumm McNaughton: Gentlemen, this has been a fascinating conversation for me. I appreciate your time so much. Three takeaways for university presidents and boards. What should they be doing to ensure their institution stays sustainable?

Bill Conley: I would, collectively do three and I’ll take the offense and do the first one. But I think they have to be realistic and follow the data and remember that all colleges in that second tier and certainly the lower tier, they’re regional, if not sub regional, so really understanding what your market is and your demand curve and listen to it. Don’t think that you can recruit your way out of a declining market, it’s just not going to happen. So again, what you come up with is going to be unique to you, but if you don’t face those realities, then you don’t get there.

Bob Massa: Yeah. And I think that really is the number one takeaway for me that institutions have to get real. They have to determine what they’re really good at, and what their overlap institutions might not be as good at, and they have to lean into that. And can’t be afraid to trim their sails, so to speak, and make certain that what they’re doing, what they’re teaching, what they’re staffed up to, is going to be appealing at a price that students can afford.

I would say also that there’s some little quick fixes that I don’t really think are quick fixes. One we just talked about, the recruitment of former students who have never earned a college degree. Another is dual enrollment. Community colleges have done this really well. Some four year colleges are now beginning to do it, and what I mean by that is that, students who are currently in high school take courses at the college and get college credit for it, and some four year colleges are beginning to look at that. The jury’s still out on whether that’s a good strategic move or not. My guess is that most of the students who do that were going to go to college anyway and are probably not going to go to your college, if they’re taking courses there. And then the third thing I’ve been hearing, not too much about lately, but several years ago, was the three year bachelor’s degree, and in fact, I think I forget which institution is looking at that now, but there are a handful

Drumm McNaughton: There’s a number of them out there. The accreditors, Northeast Commission, the Northwest Commission, and now HLC, the Higher Learning Commission are all playing in this area.

Bill Conley: And I think that there is a consortium. I heard there’s some consortial conversation around this with a group of colleges that may be part of those accreditation units you mentioned.

Bob Massa: Think about this from the institutional perspective. I understand that a three year degree is going to be more affordable perhaps for students, but, think about cutting your revenue sources by 25%. I don’t know how practical it is unless they charge more per year for a three year degree, but then what’s the point?

Bill Conley: Well, on the other hand, if you have overhead and you’re flying the plane and you’re going to get three years of somebody sitting in the plane instead of four, you’ll take the three, because at least they’re paying something.

The one final thing say is, we talked about the cost of higher education. I think a really serious examination of how are they going to address individually, an unsustainable cost, trajectory, and discounting increasingly and leaving less for development of programs and paying faculty and staff is not the answer. So, we work with clients who have wanted to do a tuition reset and lower tuition and those, we haven’t seen a real trend in that direction, but I would say if you’re not selling at the price you’re charging right now, you might have to look at the reality of how do you structure your price to be competitive in the value proposition.

Drumm McNaughton: For those two lower categories, if you’re not looking at some sort of academic realignment, prioritization, rebranding, et cetera, then you’re going to be behind and unfortunately there’s a good chance you may fall into the closure category.

Gentlemen this has been a fascinating conversation.

[00:42:13] Conclusion and Farewell

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you so much for being on the show I look forward to the next time we get a chance to have another great conversation like this.

Bob Massa: Thanks a lot, Drumm, for inviting us again. It was fun.

Bill Conley: Thanks Drumm, and, just always good to chew on these big issues. Appreciate it.

Drumm McNaughton: My pleasure thank you gentlemen.

Thanks for listening today, and a special thank you to Bill Connolly and Bob Massa for their sharing with us their insights on higher ed enrollment and what presidents can do to change how they’re operating and thinking in this new normal for higher ed.

Thanks again for listening. See you next week.