As with selective small coed colleges, some well-known women's schools (like the remaining members of the "Seven Sisters" in New England and the mid-Atlantic) flourish in terms of recruitment and finances. But Sweet Briar, a relatively isolated campus, found itself losing students and falling into the same revenue trap as many others. By 2014, undergraduate degree-seeking enrollment had fallen to 561 from 647 in 2008, while the rate of tuition discounting jumped from about 41 percent to 57 percent. It channeled more money into upgrading its facilities, but that failed to boost its numbers.
These factors all came together in early 2015 when its board voted for closure — even though the school had a relatively healthy endowment of $85 million at the time. Galvanized, its alumnae immediately began a "Saving Sweet Briar" campaign that has so far kept the school afloat. In summer 2015, former Bridgewater College President Phillip Stone was brought on for the interim. After persuading some core faculty to stay on and boosted by the fundraising campaign, the school stayed open with diminished enrollment of around 236 degree-seeking undergraduates and reduced staff. Those numbers rose to 320 students in the fall of 2016, and Stone says he now expects the student body to increase by about 100 each year for the next few years and eventually reach 800. (Stone was succeeded in May 2017 by Meredith Woo, formerly an academic dean of the University of Virginia. He was interviewed for this story while still serving as interim president.)
As part of its turnaround, the school is channeling resources into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors to market itself as an environment where women can learn to succeed in well-paying, male-dominated fields, says Stone. It is one of only two women's colleges to offer an engineering program, and Google has sent representatives to Sweet Briar in the past few years, including during its Engineering Week this spring. "We're working with more tech firms now that more and more are looking to recruit and promote women," he says. "This will be a very big part of our strategy looking ahead."
As for new and sustained revenue, the school is considering multiple approaches. Stone notes that one strategy is to recruit more foreign students, who are more likely to pay full tuition. Stone's goal is to increase their numbers to around 10 percent to 15 percent of the student body. On the horizon, Stone also envisions new revenue-building masters' degree offerings to leverage Sweet Briar's natural setting: conservation and environmental science. These professional degrees, he suggests, may be open to both men and women.
Changing Students, New Missions
Historically black colleges and universities have long been recognized for their outsized role in producing black leaders in law, medicine, engineering, and science. Access and relative economic mobility, especially for lower-income students, have historically been selling points of HBCUs. These schools, which were established as the only alternative for blacks when the vast majority of colleges and universities were all-white, are located predominately in the South and mid-Atlantic, and a third of all HBCUs are in the Richmond Fed's district. (See "Knowledge=Power," Region Focus, Summer 2004). But they, too, have to compete harder than they used to for students and are facing growing financial strains and dropping enrollment share. From 1976 to 2014, the share of black students enrolled at HBCUs dropped from 18 to 8 percent in the wake of educational desegregation and active competition among non-HBCUs to recruit top black applicants.
Today, the number of HBCUs with federal accreditation totals around 100, split between public and private, although both often get many different forms of state and federal money. Both public and private HBCUs also have a distinctive set of risk factors. First, they tend to have a higher share of lower-income students on federal aid, such as Pell Grants, and this source of support is more likely to vary over the years because it's subject to annual congressional appropriations. If the amount of aid falls or tuition rises, many of these students are likely to switch to community colleges. Moreover, a substantial share of HBCUs — about half — is small, with fewer than 2,000 in enrollment. Finally, retention is a challenge, especially for those who are the first in their families to attend college; among these students, a higher dropout rate feeds into the revenue strains. The combination of all these factors could make the financial dilemma at HBCUs more acute.
"The spiraling cost of education has pushed many students who might otherwise go to HBCUs to community colleges," agrees Johnny Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, an organization in Washington, D.C., that supports and represents public HBCUs. "For HBCUs to adapt, they need to make the case to prospective students that they offer an affordable education that leads to a good job."
One course of adaptation for many HBCUs is expanding their student pool with other minority students — notably Latino — as well as those from abroad. Today, about 20 percent of students at HBCUs are non-black. This strategy, however, has sometimes come under criticism by some for changing the character and mission of HBCUs. More broadly, Taylor describes the overall climate for HBCUs today as "very challenging." But he also notes some examples of HBCUs that are innovating with new revenue streams and strategies to keep enrollment steady. In North Carolina, for example, Fayetteville State University has expanded its online programs so that the large (and mobile) military-base population around it can take fuller advantage of its offerings, including part-time and professional certification programs.
The Utility of College
Stephen Porter, a professor of education at North Carolina State University and co-author of the Iowa State University study, believes prospective students have been evolving in their views of a college education in a way that has affected small schools in particular, well after the Great Recession.
"Students and parents are both much more price sensitive than five or 10 years ago," he says. "This probably has a lot to do with rising tuition at both private and public schools and rising student debt. Even though many private schools discount a lot, they're seen as expensive."
Now more than ever, he notes, "a student's selection of a particular college is shaped by how that decision will lead him or her to a career," he adds. "If a school has a high nominal price tag but isn't selective, and doesn't have programs and support networks to lead you to a job, then it's at a disadvantage."
These trends can be seen in one of the most comprehensive education surveys in the United States, "The American Freshman," published annually by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.
When high school seniors were asked why they selected their particular college over others, 60 percent in the most recent survey (2015) answered it was because its graduates "get good jobs." That share was up 5 percentage points in just three years and was also the highest ever for that question, which has been asked since the 1960s.
Do these converging trends mean that small schools will eventually become obsolete? Carey, of New America, sees potential for many of these schools to turn around, especially by expanding their digital programs and bringing in a broader array of students who can benefit from them. "A school can keep a small and intimate campus for those who want it and still reach thousands more across the country," he notes. "But for many of these small institutions, whatever they do, they need to go beyond their traditional model to stay viable."
As with selective small coed colleges, some well-known women's schools (like the remaining members of the "Seven Sisters" in New England and the mid-Atlantic) flourish in terms of recruitment and finances. But Sweet Briar, a relatively isolated campus, found itself losing students and falling into the same revenue trap as many others. By 2014, undergraduate degree-seeking enrollment had fallen to 561 from 647 in 2008, while the rate of tuition discounting jumped from about 41 percent to 57 percent. It channeled more money into upgrading its facilities, but that failed to boost its numbers.
These factors all came together in early 2015 when its board voted for closure — even though the school had a relatively healthy endowment of $85 million at the time. Galvanized, its alumnae immediately began a "Saving Sweet Briar" campaign that has so far kept the school afloat. In summer 2015, former Bridgewater College President Phillip Stone was brought on for the interim. After persuading some core faculty to stay on and boosted by the fundraising campaign, the school stayed open with diminished enrollment of around 236 degree-seeking undergraduates and reduced staff. Those numbers rose to 320 students in the fall of 2016, and Stone says he now expects the student body to increase by about 100 each year for the next few years and eventually reach 800. (Stone was succeeded in May 2017 by Meredith Woo, formerly an academic dean of the University of Virginia. He was interviewed for this story while still serving as interim president.)
As part of its turnaround, the school is channeling resources into science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors to market itself as an environment where women can learn to succeed in well-paying, male-dominated fields, says Stone. It is one of only two women's colleges to offer an engineering program, and Google has sent representatives to Sweet Briar in the past few years, including during its Engineering Week this spring. "We're working with more tech firms now that more and more are looking to recruit and promote women," he says. "This will be a very big part of our strategy looking ahead."
As for new and sustained revenue, the school is considering multiple approaches. Stone notes that one strategy is to recruit more foreign students, who are more likely to pay full tuition. Stone's goal is to increase their numbers to around 10 percent to 15 percent of the student body. On the horizon, Stone also envisions new revenue-building masters' degree offerings to leverage Sweet Briar's natural setting: conservation and environmental science. These professional degrees, he suggests, may be open to both men and women.
Changing Students, New Missions
Historically black colleges and universities have long been recognized for their outsized role in producing black leaders in law, medicine, engineering, and science. Access and relative economic mobility, especially for lower-income students, have historically been selling points of HBCUs. These schools, which were established as the only alternative for blacks when the vast majority of colleges and universities were all-white, are located predominately in the South and mid-Atlantic, and a third of all HBCUs are in the Richmond Fed's district. (See "Knowledge=Power," Region Focus, Summer 2004). But they, too, have to compete harder than they used to for students and are facing growing financial strains and dropping enrollment share. From 1976 to 2014, the share of black students enrolled at HBCUs dropped from 18 to 8 percent in the wake of educational desegregation and active competition among non-HBCUs to recruit top black applicants.
Today, the number of HBCUs with federal accreditation totals around 100, split between public and private, although both often get many different forms of state and federal money. Both public and private HBCUs also have a distinctive set of risk factors. First, they tend to have a higher share of lower-income students on federal aid, such as Pell Grants, and this source of support is more likely to vary over the years because it's subject to annual congressional appropriations. If the amount of aid falls or tuition rises, many of these students are likely to switch to community colleges. Moreover, a substantial share of HBCUs — about half — is small, with fewer than 2,000 in enrollment. Finally, retention is a challenge, especially for those who are the first in their families to attend college; among these students, a higher dropout rate feeds into the revenue strains. The combination of all these factors could make the financial dilemma at HBCUs more acute.
"The spiraling cost of education has pushed many students who might otherwise go to HBCUs to community colleges," agrees Johnny Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, an organization in Washington, D.C., that supports and represents public HBCUs. "For HBCUs to adapt, they need to make the case to prospective students that they offer an affordable education that leads to a good job."
One course of adaptation for many HBCUs is expanding their student pool with other minority students — notably Latino — as well as those from abroad. Today, about 20 percent of students at HBCUs are non-black. This strategy, however, has sometimes come under criticism by some for changing the character and mission of HBCUs. More broadly, Taylor describes the overall climate for HBCUs today as "very challenging." But he also notes some examples of HBCUs that are innovating with new revenue streams and strategies to keep enrollment steady. In North Carolina, for example, Fayetteville State University has expanded its online programs so that the large (and mobile) military-base population around it can take fuller advantage of its offerings, including part-time and professional certification programs.
The Utility of College
Stephen Porter, a professor of education at North Carolina State University and co-author of the Iowa State University study, believes prospective students have been evolving in their views of a college education in a way that has affected small schools in particular, well after the Great Recession.
"Students and parents are both much more price sensitive than five or 10 years ago," he says. "This probably has a lot to do with rising tuition at both private and public schools and rising student debt. Even though many private schools discount a lot, they're seen as expensive."
Now more than ever, he notes, "a student's selection of a particular college is shaped by how that decision will lead him or her to a career," he adds. "If a school has a high nominal price tag but isn't selective, and doesn't have programs and support networks to lead you to a job, then it's at a disadvantage."
These trends can be seen in one of the most comprehensive education surveys in the United States, "The American Freshman," published annually by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.
When high school seniors were asked why they selected their particular college over others, 60 percent in the most recent survey (2015) answered it was because its graduates "get good jobs." That share was up 5 percentage points in just three years and was also the highest ever for that question, which has been asked since the 1960s.
Do these converging trends mean that small schools will eventually become obsolete? Carey, of New America, sees potential for many of these schools to turn around, especially by expanding their digital programs and bringing in a broader array of students who can benefit from them. "A school can keep a small and intimate campus for those who want it and still reach thousands more across the country," he notes. "But for many of these small institutions, whatever they do, they need to go beyond their traditional model to stay viable."
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." Cooperative Institutional Research Program, Higher Education Research Institute at University of California, Los Angeles, February 2016. 
