High school graduate numbers present a challenge for colleges

Iowa's pool of high school graduates will remain relatively stable in the next decade, which is good news for the state's three public universities. Historically, most of them stay in state for college, Jason Pontius told the state Board of Regents at its Nov. 7 meeting. Pontius serves as associate chief academic officer on the board staff and provides an enrollment report each fall.

He said the regent universities, like Iowa private colleges and out-of-state college options, have attracted Iowa's high school graduates at fairly consistent rates in the last decade. What is shifting is the number of high school graduates whose post-high school plans are to forego college and join the workforce. That moved from about 11% of Iowa high school graduates in 2016 to 18% last year. Responding to a question, Pontius said there's not much data on a fairly new subset of Iowa high school graduates: (mostly) males who aren't post-high school students and aren't employed.

Another predicted shift is in the ethnicity of Iowa's high school graduates. Over the next 10-12 years, graduation numbers will reflect a decline in White students and growth in Hispanic and Black student numbers, populations which historically showed lower college-going rates. Students who identify as Hispanic or Latinx (7.2% of all regent university students) comprise the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group, up from 4.7% a decade ago.

Where they studied: Iowa high school graduates

Source: Iowa Statewide Longitudinal Data System Postsecondary Report

Iowa will fare better than neighbors

Based on Iowa K-12 student data, Pontius said Iowa will experience a three-year slowdown in its high school graduate growth rate beginning in 2027, a recovery beginning in 2030, and a second slowdown beginning in 2035. Referencing economist Nathan Grawe's 2018 "enrollment cliff" prediction, Pontius declined to call either slowdown a cliff.

Carleton College faculty member Grawe theorized that, due to declining birth rates 15 years ago, the nation's college-age population would drop by up to 15% from 2025 to 2029 and then decline incrementally through 2039. Grawe said some regions will fare better than others, with the West perhaps experiencing an enrollment increase, not much impact in the South, and the Midwest and Northeast regions experiencing decreases of 15% or more.

Pontius said several border states the regent universities draw from, especially Illinois and Wisconsin, likely will see large drops in their high school graduate populations, driving up competition for those smaller student pools. Iowa is a net importer of college students, he said. A couple of years ago, he calculated that for every four college students who came to Iowa for college, one Iowa high school graduate attended college out of state.

He said closures of small private colleges with enrollments of fewer than 1,000 students -- for example, Iowa Wesleyan University, Mount Pleasant in spring 2023 -- or consolidations, such as the two-campus solution announced in August by St. Ambrose University in Davenport and Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, may become more frequent in the decade ahead.

Conversely, large public universities seem to be holding steady, he said.

Fall 2024 enrollment: Where our students live

Pontius shared these challenges for Iowa regent universities:

• There will be fewer high school graduates nationally 2025-31, which increases the competition for students.
• International enrollments from China are in a ninth straight year of decline among the regent universities. The growth right now in international enrollment is among students from India.
• A decline in college-going rates, especially among males.
• Perception among some that college is a waste of money or the debt incurrred is too great.

He also cited a handful of trends that favor Iowa regent universities:

• A stable pool of Iowa high school graduates.
• Iowans largely stay in the state for college.
• Nationally, there's been growth in larger public universities; Pontius anticipates a few more years of growth for incoming classes.
• Regent universities have lower cost of attendance for out-of-state students than the in-state costs in Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, which has created growth in out-of-state enrollments.
• U.S. economy needs more workers with a college education or technical training.