Author Archives: sherlockj

William and Mary

by James C. Sherlock

I had never until now looked at college costs from the perspective of the new graduate, as opposed to his or her parents.

But it is fair to say that many look closely at their debt and their incomes after graduation and are taken aback, whether or not they borrow yet more to go on to graduate or professional schools.

So, I have examined available state data on student debt at graduation of the undergrads at Virginia’s public 4-year colleges and universities between 2016 and 2021.

If you expected the results that you will see here on their debts at graduation, you are much more informed that I was when I started.

Some are startling, at least to me. Continue reading →

Virginia Union University

by James C. Sherlock

Tastes change, and with them trends.

Between fall 2010 and fall 2021, total undergraduate enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in America decreased by 15% percent (from 18.1 million to 15.4 million students).

In Virginia’s 4-year public colleges and universities, the drop was 8% in that same period, right at the national average for state schools.

Virginia’s HBCU’s, except for the highest ranked, Hampton University, have fought the trend and increased their student populations dramatically recently.

The Great Recession baby bust arrives as a freshman student cliff in 2025.

National trends. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data on enrollment in undergraduate majors in 4-year public and private institutions of higher education (IHEs) show significant shifts in majors between 2010 and 2023.

There are winner and loser programs, with implications for staffing and perhaps offering a data basis for my magnet schools suggestion.

Between 2010 and 2023, undergraduate majors in:

1. liberal arts and social sciences continued to decline;
2. engineering majors have been in serious decline since 2019;
3. health professions and related programs, having seen huge increases between 2010 and 2019, and physical sciences with smaller increases in those same years, since then are in decline;
4. technology continues to gain, even faster since 2019, possibly signaling a shift from engineering to technology majors for the same types of students;
5. Psychology, flat between 2010 and 2019, is in a major uptrend since.

Adjustments within higher education are clearly necessary to accommodate the declines in student populations, the coming student cliff and shifting educational preferences by students.

Rational adjustments are clearly identifiable but rarely seen in practice. Because administrations and faculty oppose them. The ramifications: Continue reading →

University of Mary Washington

by James C. Sherlock

I have previously in this series on Virginia’s public institutions of higher learning (IHE’s) used the term “cannibalization” to describe some getting bigger and some getting smaller, a few much smaller, in terms of student populations.

I will here provide the numbers to back that up.

While the total undergraduates dropped 1.5% (minus 2,572) in the system between the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2022, the increase in graduate students (plus 3,604) made up for it and the total campus population changed 0.4%.

Basically flat.

But those system numbers mask huge swings in student populations, both undergraduate and total, among the 15 schools. The data compiled in that spreadsheet are sourced from the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).

The trends have enormous consequences for Virginia’s 4-year colleges and universities, both those that are growing and those that are shrinking.

The same trends have easily predicted consequences for Virginia students if not reversed. Continue reading →

University of Mary Washington

by James C. Sherlock

The economist Herb Stein once said that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

The University of West Virginia has just stopped to take stock.

Facing a $45 million shortfall, it had to cut programs. Instead of taking the unthinking way out — assigning a cut target to each department — it restructured.

The university shut down nearly 10% of its majors entirely. The axe fell most directly on the humanities. The Athletic Department was told it was on its own for funding.

President Gee did not want a bailout, figuring it was time to bite the bullet. He and his board decided to emphasize the programs in demand and let go those which could not attract enough students to justify their costs.

Virginia’s portfolio of institutions of higher learning (IHEs) faces challenges, some unprecedented, from at least a half dozen different sources.

Eventually, sooner rather than later, we will have to deal with them as a state. Virginia’s state “Plan” for its IHEs is not helpful.

This issue needs detail for discussion, and I will provide some here. Continue reading →