Despite months of doomsaying for regional public universities, a number boasted surprisingly robust enrollment gains this fall. We took a closer look at six.
For the past year, college enrollment predictions have been bleak.
As the botched rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid cut into completion rates, soothsayers predicted a similarly steep drop in fall enrollment. The Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban, combined with increasingly aggressive attacks from state legislatures, has eaten away at higher ed’s public image. And doubts that a college degree is worth the cost continue to mount among the general public.
So for regional public universities that expected to feel the worst effects of those shifts, it came as a pleasant surprise when they began to see positive—even historic—enrollment growth this fall.
