‘Better, Not Bigger’: As Private Colleges Hunger for Students, One University Slims Down

As several private colleges have been trying to increase, or simply maintain, their enrollment amid a slackening in the number of traditional-age students in much of the country, George Washington University is doing just the opposite. In an announcement last week, its president, Thomas J. LeBlanc, declared a new mantra: “Better, not bigger.”

After a period of enrollment growth that LeBlanc said had “stretched our facilities, our services, our staff and our faculty,” George Washington will cut its undergraduate student body by 20 percent over the next five years.

The move effectively reverses undergraduate growth of the past five years.

“Our intention is to continue to improve everything we do at GW by being even more focused on quality and less focused on quantity,” LeBlanc wrote last week, following an annual retreat with the Board of Trustees.

Measured by total enrollment, the proposed drop would mean enrolling about 2,400 fewer undergraduates, or a decrease of 480 students per year.

Details on the enrollment plan are scant. The university did not make administrators available to The Chronicle, instead replying to a series of questions with a statement.

“A critical area of focus will be elevating the quality of our undergraduate student experience,” LeBlanc wrote in the statement, “and it has become clear that this must include a serious look at how we right-size our undergraduate student population.”

The numbers are bold. But the apparent strategy behind the plan meshes with broader national conversations about enrollment, according to consultants and enrollment-management experts who spoke with The Chronicle. In the long term, they say, some colleges will be better served by carving out a unique student experience, rather than enrolling ever-greater numbers. A reputation for selectivity doesn’t hurt, either.

“I can’t say it surprises me,” Thomas C. Green, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said of George Washington’s approach. “This is something that we’ve been talking about for almost two years now.”

A looming drop-off in high-school graduates and competition from nearby public colleges have many private colleges on edge. While George Washington is perhaps more insulated from the “sustainability question” those changes pose, Green said, it could be making “a very smart chess move.”

Every college is different, said Liz Clark, vice president for policy and research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Several of George Washington’s considerations are most likely unique to that institution.

“I know it’s easy for the public to think that enrollment should just continue to go up, and that will produce more revenue,” Clark said. But eventually that growth can weigh on the sorts of things LeBlanc mentioned: physical space, services, and teaching capacity.

“It’s very easy to try to paint a story that enrollment trends are the same across the board for all private colleges and universities,” Clark said, “but they simply aren’t.”

Seen one way, the plan could be an acknowledgment that higher enrollment won’t keep the university afloat in the long term. That sort of calculus will be “a major issue over the next five to 10 years,” Green said. “And institutions that don’t pay attention to this do so at their own peril.”

George Washington was hardly the kind of college to pursue high enrollments at any cost, said Lawrence R. Ladd, director of the higher-education practice at Grant Thornton, a consulting and accounting firm. “They could admit thousands more students if they wanted to.”

But doing so could harm the student experience and decrease the college’s selectivity, which has slipped in the past five years. Colleges tend to grow incrementally, or make a proactive plan to grow, Ladd said, pointing to Princeton University. Even there, some students have told The Daily Princetonian they worry that the university’s plan to increase enrollments could change its culture and education.

It’s less common for colleges to trumpet a “very big reduction” in students like George Washington is doing, Ladd said.

George Washington has tinkered with its enrollment, retention, and recruitment strategies for years. Its total enrollment of undergraduates grew by about 20 percent from 2013 to 2018, to 12,161, according to university data.

The university became less selective in the same period, according to financial reports, and yields fell. George Washington admitted 34 percent of applicants in its 2013-14 academic year. That figure peaked at 46 percent two years later but has since fallen to 41 percent, after a new test-optional admissions policy helped drive a surge in applications. About a quarter of those accepted end up enrolling, down from 31 percent in 2013.

Meanwhile, the university offered financial aid to more students and added an office to manage enrollment and retention.

Now, the university is signaling an increased focus on research and on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, LeBlanc said. “I want to be clear,” the president wrote. “I am talking about and, not or. Increasing the number of students studying STEM subjects will broaden the conversations in our classrooms, our labs, and our residence halls.”

While those changes will probably be costly, Ladd said, they could channel more resources to fewer students. In theory, that helps differentiate the university from its competitors. “If they know how to cope with the reduction in revenue, it’s an extremely smart move.”

That’s a big “if” for colleges that are especially dependent on tuition for their income, Ladd said.

George Washington is more tuition-dependent than most, according to financial reports and tax filings. Net tuition revenue makes up more than 60 percent of its total operating revenue, higher than the average for private colleges, according to Chronicle data.

Through a spokeswoman, LeBlanc said further details of the university’s plan would come this fall.

“The goal is to ensure that our students have an outstanding experience at GW,” Leblanc wrote in the statement to The Chronicle. “How we achieve this goal will be the work before us this fall. There are many conversations to come with our faculty and with our community, and I do not want to get ahead of that process.”

For now, outside experts aren’t worried for George Washington. It has name recognition and relatively deep pockets. If anything, Green said, the move signals a decisiveness unusual for colleges, which are often known for changing strategies in response to the latest demographic trend.

Follow Steven Johnson on Twitter at @stetyjohn, or email him at steve.johnson@chronicle.com.