FAYETTEVILLE -- Fewer high school graduates in the years ahead means the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville must adopt strategies for maintaining student enrollment, Chancellor Joe Steinmetz said Tuesday.
"Financial models that are built on student growth are simply not sustainable, and, I submit, simply not wise," Steinmetz said in his annual all-campus talk.
This fall, UA's enrollment slid less than 1% to 27,559 students, with most other four-year universities in the state also experiencing year-over-year declines based on preliminary state data.
Notably for UA, the dip ended more than a decade of yearly enrollment growth built largely on recruitment of out-of-state students. Steinmetz said UA nationally had been the fastest-growing "flagship" university from 2007-2016.
[Video not loading? Click here to watch » arkansasonline.com/102ua/]
But he described an expectation that the population of students exiting high school will flatten, and then, after 2025, begin a sharp decline. For the state, a percentage decline of 30% or more is predicted by some when it comes to the number of college-going students in 2029 compared with 2017, Steinmetz said.
"It's easy to see, that this will have a profound impact on our budgeting. We have lived off additional tuition revenue that has come with steadily increasing student body numbers over the last 10 years," Steinmetz said.
He said UA will remain committed to its approximately 50-50 split for out-of-state and in-state undergraduate students, and called the university's student totals this year "likely the new norm, an enrollment fluctuating somewhere between 27,500 and perhaps 28,000 students."
Steinmetz said the university is in "a good cash position."
"This year we had a positive change of $47 million in our net position, which some people refer to as our cash reserves," Steinmetz said, stating that UA can now borrow less to pay for campus projects like a new student success center. University leaders earlier this year described it as a $45 million, approximately 71,000-square-foot building with space for tutoring, advising and other support services.
Steinmetz said boosting retention, emphasizing to potential students the importance of college and a recent new scholarship program for community college transfer students are part of UA's plans to ensure steady enrollment.
He said Arkansas ranks near the bottom nationally in the rate of students who go on from high school to attend college.
"We need to keep making the case of the importance for college, so that the percentage of students attending colleges increases, even though the total number of the population of available students declines," Steinmetz said.
A July 2018 report by the state Division of Higher Education listed a 48.2% college-going rate for 31,315 public high-school graduates. However, Alisha Lewis, a spokeswoman for the state agency, has said rate information is incomplete because it includes neither graduates of private secondary schools nor high school graduates attending college outside the state.
In his 45-minute talk, Steinmetz also spoke about new partnerships and investments in research, including early plans for a new research building projected to cost "somewhere in the neighborhood" of $75 million-$80 million.
"The need for new research space is pressing. Simply put, we're out of it, and that fact is limiting our ability to recruit faculty, to secure external funding to conduct both pure and applied research, and move discovery to market when that is desired and appropriate," Steinmetz said.
Steinmetz said the university has considered forming a health science research and innovation institute in partnership with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Discussions have been held "in parallel" with planning for a new research building, Steinmetz said, and a partnership would involve "collaborative research space and labs."
He highlighted gains in retention and graduation for UA students, citing the school's most recent six-year graduation rate of 66%. He said another jump in the graduation rate is expected, as the five-year graduation rate for the 2014 incoming class is "already over 66%."
Steinmetz said finances can keep students from graduating, and that the university has established an emergency grant fund "to help students who are encountering acute financial difficulties due to unforeseen circumstances." He added, "we just need to figure out how to scale this program up."
He referred to additional money, $5 million, being devoted to scholarships, "with an emphasis on addressing unmet need" of students.
The university's new Arkansas Transfer Achievement Scholarship, which allows graduates from UA System community colleges to continue on at UA-Fayetteville while paying community college tuition rates, aims to "expand the pipeline that comes in from our two-year colleges," Steinmetz said.
In listing ways to ensure steady enrollment, Steinmetz said increasing post-baccalaureate certificate programs will be considered, as well as possible expansion of distance-education programs. He said plans are underway to develop another nine to 12 online programs over the next year or two.
Along with any new programs, Steinmetz said boosting student retention also will be important.
"Retaining and graduating students is not only the right thing to do," Steinmetz said, calling it "good public policy." He said an increase in retention "is also good financial stewardship."
"If we retain an additional 50 students a year -- only 50 students a year -- they contribute nearly $600,000 in tuition and fees," Steinmetz said.
Metro on 10/02/2019