Enrollment cliff danger coming from outside Iowa

Despite warnings of an enrollment cliff that threatens to send the flow of high school graduates feeding thousands of colleges nationally plunging, Iowa’s high school graduate numbers aren’t expected to dip below 2019 levels any time soon — at least through 2036.

But that doesn’t mean the cliff and its consequences are irrelevant for this state, according to a new Iowa Board of Regents enrollment report presented Thursday by Associate Chief Academic Officer Jason Pontius.

Because even as Iowa high schools have and continue to churn out more graduates, the percentage enrolling in college post-graduation dropped 10 percent from 2019 to 2022.

And while Iowa is expected to see a stable or even 1-percent uptick in high school graduate numbers until 2037, many of its neighboring states — from which it pulls a growing number of non-resident students — are careening toward cliffs themselves.

Illinois, for example — which provides to Iowa’s regent universities the most out-of-state students of any, at 10,241 this fall — is expecting to see a 24 percent high school graduate decline over that period. Wisconsin, which sent 1,571 students to Iowa universities this fall, is expecting a 10 percent drop; and Missouri, with 726 students attending a regent university, is projecting a 7 percent loss.

Iowa’s universities are relying more heavily on out-of-state students in their enrollment blend. Undergraduate out-of-state students increased by 890 across the campuses this fall — with UNI reporting a non-resident uptick of 6 percent; the UI reporting an increase of 4 percent; and ISU reporting 3 percent more out-of-state students.

International student enrollment, likewise, increased on all three regent campuses this fall for the first time in nearly a decade.

“So it does provide some challenges going forward for out-of-state recruitment,” Pontius said of the enrollment cliff’s projected impact on adjacent states — even if Iowa is spared the severe drops.

“And then there's the reverse,” Pontius told the board, meeting in Cedar Falls. “A lot of states that are showing declines are looking to Iowa saying, ‘Oh wait, that's a stable high school graduate population. Maybe we can up our students from that state.”

Recruitment efforts

To that end, Pontius noted recent trends in higher education admissions and recruitment — revealing unprecedented strength in the market for students.

Colleges are advertising limited-time application fee waivers; no ACT or SAT test scores required; no need to submit an essay; no required letters of recommendation; and automatic consideration for scholarships, among other things.

Additionally, The Common Application — an undergraduate admission application with more than 1,000 campus partners in every state and 20 countries — to date has collaborated with 70 institutions in 28 states to offer “proactive admission” to more than 200,000 prospective college students.

“Basically a student, without even applying to college, receives a letter saying, ‘You've been admitted to these five institutions’,” Pontius said. “With reversing the whole process, all a student has to do is say, ‘OK, I accept.’”

Enrollment plans

Among Iowa’s high school graduates — who actually are expected to increase in number about 8 percent through 2026 before beginning a 7 percent slide back down — fewer over the last decade have been making plans to attend community college or a four-year private university.

Data that Pontius pulled for his report showed their plans to attend a four-year public university remained largely stable at 25 and 27 percent from 2011 to 2021. But the big increase came among those reporting plans to go straight to work after high school — with the percentage climbing from 9 percent in 2011 to 17 percent in 2021.

In terms of actual post-high school college enrollment among Iowans — and not just plans — 24 percent are enrolled in a four-year public university, 28 percent are enrolled in a community college and the largest 38 percent have “no enrollment found.”

That no-enrollment category is up from 28 percent in 2010.

Some of the “why“ to those trends might be found in a 2023 New America survey that asked how much participants valued a bachelor’s degree. About 66 percent either somewhat or strongly agreed a person could find a stable well-paying job with a high school degree — up from 56 percent in 2020.

About 59 percent said they thought colleges and universities are having a positive effect on “the way things are going in this country today,” which was up from 55 percent in 2022, but below the 69 percent of 2020.

Worker shortages

On a high point, Pontius noted increases in first-year students at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. All three state universities, including the University of Iowa, reported total enrollment bumps — for totals at 30,042 for the UI; 30,177 for ISU and 9,021 for UNI.

That — partnered with some recovery in public perception — “is a good thing,” he said, given projections in worker shortages. Researchers with the American Action Forum have predicted a shortage of 8.5 million workers nationwide with a bachelor’s degree by 2029, according to Pontius — revealing an expected shortage of 99,000 for Iowa, 522,000 for Illinois and 200,000 for Minnesota.

And Pontius noted an opportunity to ramp up recruitment and education efforts in the K-12 system — which in Iowa is seeing more first-generation students, who don’t have family models of what a college-career path looks like.

“We know some high schools that do a better job than others, some that outperform expectations — as far as sending students to college,” he said. “And early indication so far is that often it can be as much of the emphasis of a principal.”

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