Iowa public universities buck national headwinds with freshmen increases

IOWA CITY — Iowa’s public universities maintained, or even increased, their first-year undergraduate counts this fall — bucking a national trend of deep losses in 18-year-old freshmen, according to special analysis of that group recently released by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

First-time 18-year-old freshmen enrollment dropped 5 percent this fall across all sectors nationally — erasing a 3 percent gain reported in fall 2023. The losses were greatest for four-year public and private colleges and universities — with both sectors reporting drops topping 6 percent.

“Our numbers are up, and that is fantastic news,” Jason Pontius, Board of Regents associate chief academic officer, told the governing board in November about the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa. “That is a testament to the work of our three universities, that in this environment that we've been able to maintain and grow our enrollment.”

The new national report, though, indicates Iowa higher education as a whole — including four-year private universities and two-year community colleges — is among the hardest hit by 18-year-old enrollment losses. Clearinghouse data encompassing 1.4 million 18-year-old freshmen as of Oct. 31 shows Iowa saw a 13-percent drop in first-time freshmen who came from within its borders — regardless of whether they attended college in Iowa or elsewhere.

That is different than the 2.4 percent increase in total enrollment Iowa saw in its colleges and universities this fall — including students who started both in and outside the state.

As for the 13 percent drop in freshmen coming from within Iowa, that ranks among the biggest losses nationally — topped only by Wyoming at 20 percent, Nebraska at 17 percent, South Dakota at 16 percent, West Virginia at 15 percent, and North Dakota and Nevada at 14 percent.

Those trends map with Iowa regent university data crediting their campuses’ ability to increase enrollment this fall to increases in out-of-state enrollment. The national trends also track with changes in post-secondary plans among Iowa high schoolers.

Where only 8 percent of Iowa graduating seniors in 2004-05 said they planned to jump straight into the workforce after high school, 18 percent said so in 2023-24, according to data collected by the Iowa Department of Education.

At the same time, the portion of respondents intending to attend a community college dropped from 40 percent in 2009-10 to 28 percent last year. And those aiming to attend a private college or university dipped from 14 percent to 10 percent over that period.

Although the number of Iowa high school seniors planning to attend a public four-year university has held steady since 2015-16 — a growing gap exists between the 9,543 who said they wanted to and the 7,351 who enrolled in one of Iowa’s four-year public institutions.

“Some of those students are going out of state to a four-year public, some of them maybe intended to go to a four-year public and got a better scholarship offer from a private college in the state, some decided to go to a community college for a few years instead or, increasingly, just didn’t have a college education as part of their post-high school life,” Pontius said.

Demographic shifts

Breaking down the freshmen losses nationally, private institutions that serve a high number of Pell grant recipients — those qualifying for federal aid based on their low-income status — suffered the steepest freshmen loss at 10 percent.

Looking across different racial ethnicities, highly selective four-year institutions suffered their sharpest drop in freshmen among black students — reporting a nearly 17 percent decline — while their white freshmen enrollment dropped 5 percent.

Across all institutions, though, 18-year-old freshmen enrollment dropped the most among white students at 10 percent, followed by Black and multiracial students at 8 percent each, and then Asian students at 6 percent.

Those demographic changes are coming into play in Iowa, where the high school enrollment of white students is projected to continue falling to its lowest on record by 2036, while its Hispanic, Black, and multiracial high school enrollment is expected to reach all-time highs by that year.

“It's important to point out that in some of these categories, historically, there have been lower college-going rates,” Pontius said. “So it's something that we need to keep in mind going forward, in attracting and retaining Iowa high school graduates in the state.”

News of the enrollment trends nationally and locally comes as confidence in higher education has plummeted, according to a recent Gallup survey. Where 57 percent of respondents a decade ago in 2015 reported a “great deal” of confidence in higher ed, that dropped to 36 percent this year. Meanwhile, the 10 percent who reported “very little” confidence a decade ago has swelled to 32 percent today, according to the poll.

Those confidence losses are steepest among Republicans, who hold a strong legislative majority in Iowa. Where 56 percent of Republicans had a great deal of confidence in higher ed in 2015, just 20 percent do today. Crisscrossing that group’s confidence slide has been a spike in the percent of Republicans with “very little” confidence — from 11 percent a decade ago to 50 percent today.

Among Republicans’ criticism of Iowa’s public universities has been their attention and spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — even as the campuses report increases in racial and ethnic diversity among students.

Lawmakers and the Board of Regents in recent months have pressed the campuses — through legislation and mandates — to eliminate DEI positions while taking steps to increase their ideological diversity.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com