Editorial: UMass can look inside, outside public-college system to raise numbers

Can the UMass system successfully navigate the trough of the declining pool of high school graduates?

UMass President Marty Meehan, who’s acutely aware of the rise in higher-education institute closures, said in an interview over the weekend that UMass has a strategy that he hopes will spare it from the same demographic shift driving those shutdowns.

That strategy builds in part on the UMass system’s elevated academic stature.

“There’s a demographic issue — not just in Massachusetts and New England, [the] northeastern part of the country — in that the number of students that are graduating high school is coming down; it’s going to come down at a faster pace. That’s one of the reasons why you see so many colleges in New England that have closed. The non-elite privates are in trouble … eventually, it’s going to affect the public universities,” Meehan said on WCVB’s “On The Record” in an interview that aired Sunday.

He added, “And I can tell you, we’re focused like a laser beam at UMass on making sure we keep our national rankings up, make sure our reputation is up, so we won’t have the problem of enrollment going down.”

The problem is, that’s already happened.

UMass’ enrollment was projected to decrease by 0.3% in fiscal year 2024, part of a three-year downward trend.

The “points of pride” section of the UMass system webpage that in 2019 featured UMass’ swift growth now focuses on the system’s standing in national rankings in keeping with Meehan’s strategy.

“UMass is now ranked 43rd among all U.S. institutions and 22nd among all U.S. public universities in the 2024 Times Higher Education World University Rankings,” the system wrote. “UMass remains the top public university in New England, a position it has held in the Times Higher Education rankings since 2014.”

Meehan has previously warned that UMass has started to contend with “very strong headwinds” of enrollment pressures fueled by lower birth rates, a resultant increased competition for students, and the questioning of the return on investment from a college degree.

The latter’s a concerning matter that must compound Meehan’s unease.

And he won’t be assuaged by a new Pew Research Center survey that shows the public has mixed views about the importance of a college degree.

According to the Pew poll, only one-in-four U.S. adults believe it’s extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree in order to get a well-paying job in today’s economy. About a third (35%) say a college degree is somewhat important, while 40% say it’s not too or not at all important.

These findings have undoubtedly been influenced by rising tuition costs and mounting student debt.

For instance, students entering UMass Lowell face a $30,000 bill for tuition, fees, plus room and board.

We see one of Meehan’s main missions, aside from positioning the UMass campuses as attractive alternatives to the state’s prestigious private universities, as concentrating on retaining students already matriculating in the state’s public-college system, and facilitating a college path for lower-income high-school students.

One internal pipeline that should be exploited involves the further education of community college graduates.

Providing the way to a four-year public college undergraduate degree just happens to be the goal of the MassTransfer program.

The cost of that four-year degree becomes more manageable if you first earn an associate’s degree at a two-year community college.

To help leverage those savings toward completion of a bachelor’s degree, the state’s community colleges, state universities, and the University of Massachusetts system offer a variety of cost-saving transfer options to reduce the overall out-of-pocket expense of a bachelor’s degree.

That’s a recruiting advantage that none of the state’s private colleges can match.

At the secondary-school level, since last fall through the Commonwealth College Academy, UMass Lowell and UMass Dartmouth have partnered with 11 high schools in Massachusetts — two-thirds of which are in Gateway Cities — to offer students the ability to earn 30 college-level courses at the schools.

That could decrease the cost of college by 25% – one full year.

Locally, Billerica, Dracut, Greater Lowell Technical, and Methuen high schools participate in the program.

The CCA experience also teaches students what to expect in college, both inside and outside the classroom, by providing them with periodic visits to UMass campuses and an optional summer program for further enrichment.

Encouraged by the program’s successful rollout,  Meehan said in his State of the University address that the Commonwealth Collegiate Academy’s enrollment will increase threefold, serving more than 2,000 high-school students.

Already, 50 students from the nascent CCA program have been accepted into UMass Lowell or UMass Dartmouth.

The trend of declining enrollment has prompted an amendment to the Senate’s fiscal year 2025 state budget to create a special commission to find short- and long-term solutions to declining enrollments.

State Sen. Marc Pacheco said the UMass system has seen a decline from 57,199 undergrads in 2019 to 53,854 in 2023.

Whether that amendment survives the budget’s reconciliation process remains to be seen.

With or without it, promoting internal and external measures to boost enrollment appears a viable way to stem the UMass system’s student decline.