Decline In Enrollment Research Articles

A mathematical programming approach to elementary school facility decisions

Beginning in the early 1970's, school districts throughout the United States were abruptly faced with a dramatic decline in enrollments. These declines required that many administrators adjust their planning procedures to include the effects of unused or under-used facilities. The most prominent of these decisions was the closing of selected schools. Most districts addressed this issue by establishing citizen task forces to analyze the current situation, to recommend how school facilities should be reorganized, and to develop the timing of these activities. These citizen task forces clearly operate in a political environment, and are necessarily concerned with qualitative social issues as well as those issues that are traditionally more quantifiable. In this paper we develop and investigate the use of quantitative tools that enhance this decision making process. Specifically, we discuss the development of a zero-one integer program designed to assist in facility allocation problems faced by many school districts. The paper includes a demonstration case study using this model with data from the State College, Pennsylvania school district.

ACTIONS TAKEN BY PUBLIC TWO‐YEAR COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS TO COPE WITH AND RESPOND TO ENROLLMENT DECLINE

Due to changing environmental conditions arising in the past ten to fifteen years, many community colleges for the first time in their relatively short history have experienced enrollment decline. ...

Recruiting to halt the decline in undergraduate agronomy enrollments

A questionnaire was sent to agronomy and related departments at land-grand institutions to determine trends in undergraduate enrollments and to identify effective recruitment techniques. Results from the questionnaire (71% response) showed that university enrollments have increased by 9% since 1978, while 21 and 51% enrollment declines for the same period were seen in the colleges of agriculture and agronomy departments, respectively. Most of the questionnaire respondents are either using or considering recruitment programs to attract students into agronomy. Recruitment techniques considered to be effective include strengthening the introductory crops and soils courses, offering scholarships to incoming students, and recruiting at special functions such as career days. Techniques rated as relatively ineffective include presenting recruitment talks to high school students, hosting state judging contests, and sending promotional materials such as brochures to students.

Enrollment Decline: Perceptions and Responses

This paper examines college and university responses to enrollment decline. Two perspectives on decline are identified in the literature: environmental constraints and organizational process and choice. Each perspective is described, identified, and tested on a sample of small-to-medium size universities and colleges. The results indicate that organizational responses to decline are shaped by how members perceive decline. Thus, perceptions rather than objective evidence of decline seem more useful in predicting responses to decline. The paper discusses implications of these findings.

The Impact of School Desegregation Programs on White Public-School Enrollment, 1968-1976

This article examines the findings of a national study of the impact of school desegregation programs on white public-school enrollment trends in school districts grouped according to region, metropolitan status, and source of pressure to desegregate. The analysis is based on a larger and more diverse sample of districts than was used in previous studies. It shows that the increased exposure of white pupils to black pupils (or interracial contact) substantially affects the demography of school systems and leads to reductions in white enrollment. Moreover, the adverse effect of increased interracial contact is not limited to school districts that have implemented desegregation programs, although these districts experience an accelerated rate of white enrollment decline. White enrollment losses appear to be short term, limited primarily to the year a desegregation program is implemented. An important implication of thesefindings is that white enrollment 'trends are sensitive not to the programmatic components of desegregation strategies but rather to the amount of change in interracial contact that such strategies bring about.

Enrollments in accounting programs: Trends and forecasts

Abstract Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) were used to forecast trends in accounting enrollment to 1989. Overall undergraduate and graduate enrollments are expected to decline from historical highs reached in the early 1980s. Accounting enrollments should peak during this time period. Relative to programs in business and management, accounting has increased in size, particularly at the master's level. The expected decline in overall enrollments may lead to a strengthening of accounting and business programs at the expense of other academic areas. The methodological strengths and weaknesses of AICPA and NCES enrollment forecasting models are analyzed in an appendix.

Enrollment Decline: A Blessing in Disguise?

Declining enrollments need not mean a decline in the quality of education, according to this writer, who cites as evidence the results of a survey of New Mexico superintendents.

Predicting Succession Under Conditions of Enrollment Decline

A case survey method was used to investigate superintendent succession under conditions of declining enrollments in school districts. Variables related to the three possible explanations of succession were explored relative to succession and nonsuccession in 56 districts. Support was found for thegeneral explanations and speciflc variables as predictors, with superintendent relations with the board and communities emerging as the strongest predictors of succession.

White Enrollment Loss

The effect of school desegregation on white enrollment losses is assessed for 43 large school districts that desegregated between 1968 and 1976. The impact of desegregation is considered within a theoretical framework in which predictor variables are grouped into three basic categories-exit, voice, and loyalty. Several exit-related variables proved to be important contributors to white enrollment decline measured both at the year of desegregation implementation and for an average three-year period thereafter. Desegregation-yearwhite losses were primarily the result of percentage minority in the district, desegregation change, size of district, and predesegregation enrollment decline. The only nonexit variable to reach statistical significance was desegregation resistance. Postdesegregation white student outmigration was affected by substantially similar forces except that predesegregation enrollment change was not important.

Decline, New Demands, and Quality: The Context for Renewal

In the past five years, extensive attention in higher education has been focused on economic and enrollment decline—its nature, consequences, and institutional responses. Yet, little attention has been given to the long-term consequences of decline and to the question of how institutions prevent resource constraints and decline from becoming organizational stagnation. Drawing on findings from research in other settings and higher education’s experience to date, an organizational development agenda for institutional renewal under such conditions is suggested.

School Desegregation and White Enrollment Decline: A Test of Certain Common Propositions

School Desegregation and White Enrollment Decline: A Test of Certain Common Propositions

The Determinants of Postsecondary Enrolment Rates in Ontario

This paper examines the determinants of postsecondary enrolment rates in Ontario in the context of economic theories of educational demand. The traditional consumption and investment theories are found to provide significant determinants of observed enrolment rates, especially for universities. Community college enrolments appear to be more income sensitive than university enrolments and, within the university student body, graduate enrolments appear to be more price sensitive than undergraduate enrolments. In addition, an indicator of cohort size is shown to have a depressing effect on enrolment rates. No significant effects of "competition" between universities and community colleges are discerned. The results are used to account for the stabilization in postsecondary enrolment rates in Ontario over the 1970s and to provide insights into likely future developments. Illustrative calculations suggest that, on average, enrolment rates in postsecondary institutions are likely to increase over the 1980s, primarily as a result of increasing per capita incomes and declining cohort sizes. Consequently, the often anticipated decline in postsecondary enrolments is unlikely to materialize and public policies towards postsecondary institutions, especially universities, must be careful to incorporate this information.

Priorities for Nurse Training Act legislation: a national survey of nursing deans.

Abstract1984 represents a pivotal year for nursing and nursing education in part as a result of future legislation of the Nurse Training Act (NTA). In the face of lost federal funds secondary to the recession, and/or the current administration's attitude toward funding for higher education as well as a decreasing number of college‐age students, nursing must be prepared to launch a united effort to recapture lost funds and/or prevent future losses. This must be a deliberate, pragmatic, and well‐organized effort. It must be goal‐oriented, not merely reactive. To assess how nursing deans and/or chairpersons are planning to confront the financial and demographic realities of the1980s and 1990s a national survey was conducted among 227 nursing education administrators. These administrators responded to a four‐page questionnaire providing quantitative and qualitative data. Areas covered in the questionnaire included previous use of NTA funds, priorities for future nurse training legislation and funding, enrollment trends of undergraduate and graduate nursing students and lastly, master plans and future goals designed to cope with reduced federal funding. Categories that were most important in the establishment, maintenance, or expansion of their programs were capitation, graduate and undergraduate student assistance, and special projects. The respondents indicated that future priorities for nurse training funding would include direct student assistance, piogram and institutional support, and individual needs of specific schools and/or regions. The respondents claimed that over the last five years 30% of schools had experienced a decline in enrollment of undergraduates, and 27% had experienced a decline in graduate enrollment. Lost federal funds contributed to 74 % of the undergraduate decline and 74% of the graduate decline. Future goals and master plans designed to cope with reduced federal funding have been characterized as developmental programatic approaches and/or a combined developmental/programatic approach. However, a startling 16% of the total respondents did not indicate future plans or goals. This survey further indicated that the priorities of those surveyed have changed from program concerns to student concerns and that their assessed needs are dramatically different from those of the Reagan administration. Of the deans and/ or chairpersons surveyed, 74% indicated that they were generating creative plans to cope with lost federal funds.

Studying Enrollment Decline (and other Timely Issues) via the Case Survey

The subject of this paper is a technique to integrate several isolated case studies. It was created, almost by necessity, as a result of two problems which often plague educational researchers: constraints on data collection and the proliferation of one-shot case studies. Each problem will be discussed briefly. If educational researchers want to study a controversial issue, the implementation of a new technique, or the impact of a new policy, they are often constrained by a number of factors. In school closings, for example, it is possible that the cost of collecting data over the duration of the decision making process will be prohibitive. Second, access to the various participants may be problematic. People move away, boards go into executive session, and subjects may refuse to cooperate. Finally, it is often difficult to conceive a quasi-experimental or experimental design. Imagine a researcher who wants to study the effects of a community involvement policy on the closure decision. The researcher could not ask the school board

Organizational Decline and Executive Succession.

This paper focuses on the ten-year enrollment decline experience of 56 school districts to investigate the effects of performance, strategy, political, and enrollment variables on succession. The d...

Strategic assessment—A rational response to university cutbacks

Effective strategic assessment and planning is required if public higher education is to cope with the problems of the next two decades. This article suggests an approach that can be easily adapted to most public post-secondary institutions, based on a strategic plan devised to combat decline in enrolment and fiscal reduction in a State educational institution.

Update:Small, Private Colleges Begin to Feel Effects of Enrollment Decline

Update:Small, Private Colleges Begin to Feel Effects of Enrollment Decline

Growth, Stability, and Decline in American College and University Enrollments

The incidence of growth, stability, and decline in college and university enrollments during the 1970s is examined. The results show that variations in growth, stability, and decline are related to institutional type and control. A numbe rof institutional and environmentalfactors are discussed in an effort to explain the observed dynamics.

Environmental change, enrollment decline and institutional response: Speculations on retrenchment in colleges and universities

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of environmental change and institutional response that shows why a variety of strategies are required by colleges and universities in dealing with declining enrollments. Much as been written in recent years about how institutional leadership should plan for and react to declining enrollments, but no comprehensive overview of the problem or response to it has emerged (Whetten, 1981). Enrollment decline has been treated as an undifferentiated phenomenon that affects all institutions in much the same manner. As a result, the strategies for coping with enrollment decline suggested in the literature are often portrayed as being universally applicable. In this paper we argue that there are different types of environmental conditions that cause enrollment decline and that require different types of institutional retrenchment strategies. The paper is divided into three parts. First, a model of environmental decline is developed and its application to higher education explored. Second, data on college and university enrollments between 1976 and 1979 are presented to illustrate

The Managerial Opportunity of Enrollment Decline

What makes the difference between a school system that withers under the crisis of enrollment decline, and one that responds by taking advantage of this opportunity? In his keynote address to the Managing Enrollment Decline conference, Willis D. Hawley, Dean of the George Peabody College for Teachers, set forth that question. The answer is, I think, quite simple. The answer is management. The school systems that are able to seize the opportunity created by declining enrollments are ones in which the superintendent, school board members, principals, teachers, union leaders, and parents possess some of the important skills of management. The school systems that wither simply lack those managerial resources. This, of course, is a tautology: School systems that respond well have, by definition, good management. School systems that wither have, again by definition, poor management. The hypothesis is untestable. You cannot create a research design to determine whether a lack of management is correlated with withering. For management is not accounting, or auditing, or personnel systems, or management information systems, or any of a variety of other (easily countable, if not easily measurable) things associated with management systems. Rather, management is getting a group of people to work together toward a common set of goals more effectively than they would if they all went about their tasks individually. Management is getting results. School systems that use the opportunity of enrollment decline to produce better results are thus, by definition, better managed, although admittedly it's easier to manage in some settings than in others (see Boyd, 1982).