PEORIA MAGAZINE August 2022

S P O T L I G H T

LOCAL COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES CONFRONT ENROLLMENT DECLINES With students questioning the investment, schools are getting creative

BY PHIL LUCIANO PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

Stephen Standifird is president of Bradley University

A s college enrollment has plum meted nationally, area higher education leaders have taken note — and taken action. Unde r g r a du a t e en r o l l men t nationally has declined by more than 662,000 students — 4.7% — from spring 2021, according to a report released in May by the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that collects education data for U.S. colleges and universities. Altogether during the pandemic, the number of undergraduate students shrank by nearly 1.4 million. Plus, graduate

BRADLEY UNIVERSITY Bradley President Stephen Standifird subscribes to the view that colleges have caused their own enrollment problems. Historically, degrees had been earned in a seller’s market, so colleges did little to assess the needs of students. “The idea of constant demand has changed, I think forever,” he said. “When you’re in constant demand, you can get sloppy in designing what you think is right.” At Bradley, undergraduate enrollment

and professional-degree enrollment declined by 1 percent over the last year. Even before COVID-19, college enrollment had been dropping, as would-be students pondered whether traveling thescholastic route–nowadays pockmarked with college-debt horror stories — still provides a solid payoff. Locally, Bradley University, Illinois Central College and Eureka College have been rethinking how to attract and keep young people who more and more see career paths that forgo traditional campuses.

26 AUGUST 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE