allowing some universities to admit a higher portion of out-of-state students.developing a new online course model to serve adult students.holding in-state tuition flat for seven years to improve affordability.Hans then described a list of things the UNC System is doing to prepare. The national line dips down long before the UNC System’s growth begins to waver. Hans pointed to a large chart comparing the national decline in college enrollment to UNC System’s enrollment. “American universities have benefited from a decades-long tailwind of population growth and greater demand for higher education,” Hans said. In September, UNC System President Peter Hans spoke of these trends in his monthly speech to the system’s board of governors. UNC System leaders have been watching and preparing for these demographic changes. Now, since the pandemic began, even fewer of those graduates are choosing to go to college at all. Nationally, the traditional pool of college applicants - recent high school graduates - is receding because the birth rate fell after the Great Recession. What’s happening to enrollment at UNC Greensboro and other mid-size public universities is part of a changing tide in higher education. The UNC System is adjusting to a changing landscape “But they need support.”įor WUNC University of North Carolina Greensboro Chancellor Frank Gilliam, left, and Bob Shea, vice chancellor for the Division of Finance and Administration at the University of North Carolina Greensboro on Wednesday, Jan. “If you want to have a prosperous state, if you want to reduce income inequality, if you want to rebuild the middle class, these are the students who are going to do it,” Gilliam says. In 2022, US News & World Report ranked UNC Greensboro number 1 in North Carolina - and 18th in the country - for social mobility. “We take kids from small towns, from inner cities, and we give them careers, and we change their lives and their families’ lives,” Gilliam says.Īlmost half of UNC Greensboro undergraduate students are eligible for federal Pell grants, a common marker for students who come from low-income backgrounds. At the same time, the UNC System has changed the formula it will use to determine its request for state funding this year, shifting some priorities.įunding pressures will pose new challenges to a university that has built a reputation for improving the economic futures of underprivileged students. UNC Greensboro’s undergraduate enrollment is down roughly 11% from 2020 to 2022, based on fall data. That will require immediate budget cuts affecting staff and services that the university has grown over the past decade. UNC Greensboro is projecting a nearly $12.4 million loss in tuition, fees and state funding next school year. Often regional public universities, like UNC Greensboro, are being hit the hardest by these enrollment trends. College enrollment has been falling nationally, but the trend has arrived in North Carolina later than in other states. As enrollment shrinks, so will their budgets. “Do you have fewer academic advisors? Do you have fewer people in financial aid?”Īfter many years of steady growth, 12 of the 16 universities in the UNC System saw their student populations decline this past fall. “Do you have fewer mental health counselors? Not a good idea today.” Gilliam says. The chancellor recently held an all-hands-on-deck meeting with the university’s entire Student Affairs division to consider what student service positions would need to be cut back. Gilliam says some of the administrative positions that reported to him and the business office were among the first to go. “We're embarrassed to say how many people are actually running this university,” says Chancellor Franklin Gilliam. It is one sign of the downsizing that has already begun in the face of falling enrollment and a looming budget deficit. Half of the offices sit empty at the chancellor's suite at UNC Greensboro.
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