Enrollment losses at Iowa’s public universities mirror national downward trend

IOWA CITY — The ongoing enrollment losses that Iowa’s public universities are experiencing mirror trends shaping the higher education landscape nationally — with the state Board of Regent campuses losing 7 percent of their total enrollment since fall 2019, compared with a 6.5 percent drop nationally over the two years.

But the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa combined two-year drop is more than double the 3 percent national average for public four-year institutions only.

Looking at just the first of those two years, the regent campuses’ combined 4.4 percent drop last fall from 2019 was well above the .8 percent national loss among their public peers. For the second year, the regents’ drop this fall from last was 2.5 percent — nearer the national average of 2.3 percent, according to new enrollment reports from the regents and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

“The enrollment decline was driven largely by a 7 percent and 5.7 percent decline in the size of the sophomore and junior classes, respectively, and a 7.3 percent decline in the number of international students,” according to the regents fall 2021 enrollment report made public last week.

Offsetting those losses is the good news — increases in new first-year, out-of-state, and graduate students. With the collective undergraduate population at its lowest since fall 2009, the undergrad group now accounts for 79 percent of the regent total, down from 81 percent a few years ago. Graduate student counts — still below the 2013 to 2018 academic years — now make up 17 percent of the total enrollment, with professional students accounting for the remaining 4 percent.

The Iowa universities’ combined enrollment this fall of 69,848 is the lowest since 2007’s 69,178. And this fall’s tally is down 13 percent from a peak of 80,064 in 2016.

Aggravating the falling count — already headed for an often-cited “enrollment cliff” due to demographic changes and a drop in the birthrate during the recession — is the pandemic. Not only did COVID-19 upend the traditional college campus experience and shift large swaths of instruction online last academic year, it created new financial and health hurdles, forcing thousands of students to postpone or reconsider plans for a higher ed degree.

And while many colleges — including the regent schools — tout business on campus as usual this fall, enrollment remains anything but.

“Enrollments are not getting better, they're still getting worse,” National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Executive Director Doug Shapiro told reporters last week, noting national data are preliminary. “But if this current rate of decline … were to hold up, it would be the largest two-year enrollment decline in at least the last 50 years in the U.S. And the largest by about a factor of two, in fact.”

The biggest two-year drop before the COVID-19-compelled losses — according to U.S. Department of Education data dating to 1970 — was a 3.3 percent decline from 2011 to 2013, according to Shapiro.

“That's when we were coming off an all-time high from the Great Recession, so those declines weren't quite so painful,” he said. “These declines that we're seeing today are from an already depressed level of enrollment.”

In vs. out-of-state

Breaking down the Iowa regent university enrollment, ISU — which still has the most students of the three — saw the biggest total drop of 1,117 students, or 3.5 percent, followed by UNI’s 3.1 percent drop and UI’s 1.3 percent slide.

The UI now is enrolling the most in-state students at 17,657 — although all three campuses have fewer Iowa residents this year than last and the year before that. ISU in fall 2013 had far and away the most in-state students — at 19,847, compared with the UI’s 15,856, and UNI’s 10,842.

Where the UI back in 2013 had the most out-of-state students, ISU took up that mantle in 2016 — but has been losing ground annually since 2018. And the UI was the only school this fall to report an out-of-state enrollment increase, at 2 percent.

All three continued to lose international enrollment, driven by a plunge in students from China. The count slid from a high of 4,374 in fall 2015 to 1,330 this year.

The regent system’s two-year international enrollment loss of 25 percent — from 5,868 in 2019 to 4,383 this fall — is slightly greater than the national international student decline of 21 percent, according to the clearinghouse.

Given the pandemic’s safety and travel concerns, Shapiro said he’s not surprised by the steep international losses. But for this fall to have shown no improvement “has got to be of great concern to many institutions,” he said.

Community colleges

Iowa’s regent institutions — also in line with the others around the country — collectively continued to lose community college transfers this fall, a number that’s down 28 percent from fall 2013. Both ISU and the UI saw 13 percent losses last fall, more than double UNI’s 6 percent drop. But while the UI this year reported a nearly 7 percent gain, ISU saw another 4 percent slip and UNI dropped a steeper 11 percent.

“Most of the decline can be attributed to significant declines in the number of students attending Iowa community colleges since 2013,” according to the board’s enrollment report.

Although Iowa’s full 2021 community college enrollment report hasn’t been released yet, its fall 2020 report showed a 6 percent enrollment drop from fall 2019 — with Kirkwood Community College reporting the steepest loss of more than 13 percent.

This fall, Kirkwood saw improvement in total enrollment — up 3 percent. Its total credit hours improved 1 percent, according to spokesman Justin Hoehn.

Iowa is not alone in its community college impact, with the national clearinghouse in its new enrollment summary reporting community colleges have been hardest hit by the pandemic — compared with four-year public and nonprofit private institutions.

Where the national two-year enrollment loss for four-year public institutions was 3 percent and the two-year loss for nonprofit privates was 1.2 percent, community colleges from fall 2019 to this semester saw enrollment drop 14 percent.

“Just like we saw last year, it's again the community colleges that are taking the brunt of the declines,” Shapiro said. “And these are the students who normally would be enrolling in droves.”

During the 2008 recession, community college enrollment surged — with the expectation those students would head back into the job market with new skills.

“But this time, it's like the entire crest of that wave got swallowed up by the pandemic,” Shapiro said. “And what we're seeing here is two troughs, one after the other.”

Upside

Despite the dour trends on many levels, Iowa’s public universities are celebrating some gains — like in new first-year undergraduates. All three regent campuses saw gains in that, with ISU reporting the biggest increase of 6 percent, UNI reporting a 5 percent jump and the UI reporting a negligible bump of 11 students.

The UI saw the biggest increase of the three in graduate students, at 3.6 percent. UNI also grew its graduate population by 2.6 percent, although ISU recorded a loss.

Echoing Iowa’s shifting demographics, the portion of the regents’ combined student body that identifies as a racial or ethnic minority is up to 17 percent this fall, from 11 percent in 2013.

UI reports 22 percent of its first-year undergraduates identify as a minority, and 19 percent are the first in their families to go to college.

About 18 percent of ISU’s freshman class is multiracial, and UNI reports 12 percent identifying as such. UNI also reports a quarter of its first-year class is first-generation and 92 percent of its total undergrad enrollment is from Iowa.

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