In previous years, an email announcing an enrollment shortfall and budget cuts at Emerson College, in Boston, wouldn’t have gotten much attention outside campus.
Emerson is, after all, a pricey liberal-arts college, competing in what may be the most crowded market for such institutions at a time when many are facing similar challenges.
But last week’s email, from its president, Jay M. Bernhardt, became a national flashpoint because it blamed the enrollment decline on negative reactions to pro-Palestinian student protests. In that email Bernhardt wrote that the projected incoming class of first-year students was “significantly below what we had hoped.” The downturn was due to “multiple factors,” the president said, “including national enrollment trends away from smaller private institutions, an enrollment deposit delay in response to the new FAFSA rollout, student protests targeting our yield events and campus tours, and negative press and social media generated from the demonstrations and arrests.”
Emerson students have demanded for months that the college call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and divest from any “Zionist entities.” More than 100 students were arrested in April after putting up an encampment. And some students disrupted admissions events such as campus tours, according to The Berkeley Beacon, the student newspaper.
“Chaotic anti-Israel protests and the harassment of Jewish students at posh universities sent a clear message: Here you can major in antisemitism and minor in entitlement,” wrote the editorial staff for the conservative-leaning Boston Herald. “What parent wants to send their child to a college that does nothing to encourage critical thinking,” the editorial continued, “and where students have their need for ‘solidarity’ co-opted by political agendas?”
Some prospective and current students do have concerns about antisemitism on Emerson’s campus, said Miriam Berkowitz Blue, executive director of the Hillel Council of New England, which maintains a presence on a half-dozen Boston-area campuses, including Emerson.
But John Gianvito, a professor and director of graduate studies in the department of visual and media arts, said that blaming the college’s enrollment and financial problems on the protests is disingenuous and overshadows larger problems with the college and higher education nationally.
Chief among student complaints is Emerson’s cost, Gianvito said, which is set to rise another 3 percent for the fall. The average price paid by Emerson undergraduates in 2022 was more than $51,000, according to federal data — nearly 70 percent higher than the median net price of similar colleges.
“For Bernhardt to assign blame to our students for any part of the current drop in registration numbers struck me as not only wrongheaded but likely itself to actually do more damage to the college’s public image,” Gianvito wrote in an email to The Chronicle.
Campus Discontent
High-profile student protests have, in one significant case, been followed by a sharp drop in enrollment.
At the University of Missouri at Columbia, anger about racial injustice spiraled into a hunger strike by a graduate student and a boycott by the football team in 2015. The system president and campus chancellor resigned in the fallout.
Freshman enrollment at Mizzou tanked by more than a third in the two years following those protests. University leaders initially pinned the blame on “overblown news accounts” that suggested the campus was unsafe, though the full story of what prompted the decline was more nuanced.
I suspect Emerson is not going to be the last college to announce serious financial concerns this summer, and that many of them will not have had a whisper of protest on their campus.
Emerson, too, has had a tumultuous year of campus discontent, driven partly by protests against the war in Gaza, but also frustration over tuition prices and a perceived lack of responsiveness by administrators.
The first arrests came in March, when a dozen Emerson students were arrested by campus police for a pro-Palestinian protest outside President Bernhardt’s inauguration, according to The Berkeley Beacon. A week later, more students walked out of class to protest the arrests at the inauguration, the student paper reported.
In April, following the arrest of more than 100 students at a Columbia University encampment, Emerson students formed their own encampment in an alley adjacent to campus. Four days later, after warnings from the college administration and city officials, Boston police arrested 108 students. Four police officers were injured during the arrests, according to news accounts.
The arrests have caused serious fallout for Bernhardt, who began his tenure at Emerson just a year ago. The student government unanimously voted no-confidence in the president. The Faculty Assembly narrowly rejected a no-confidence motion, but approved a motion to censure Bernhardt.
Following those votes, Bernhardt hosted a town hall for the campus to share their experiences and frustrations, and then issued an open letter to the campus.
“I certainly heard and now better understand the pain these recent experiences have caused our community,” Bernhardt wrote. “I deeply regret that despite our best efforts, our students’ activism resulted in police action over their encampment, especially in the heartbreaking way it occurred.”
He also pledged to communicate more frequently with campus constituencies and work to improve trust in his leadership.
The college’s Board of Trustees has also issued statements supporting Bernhardt following both the April arrests and critical votes from students and faculty. The president’s “approach to recent events reinforced to the board that he is a strong leader who can address the college’s long-term operational needs,” trustees said in May, “and a compassionate leader who can rebuild the faculty, staff, and student relationships necessary to bring us together in challenging times.”
Deeper Problems
The arrests and tensions at Emerson have generated unflattering headlines. But could that have led to an actual decline in enrollment?
The protests briefly halted some admissions activities. Emerson closed the campus visitor center the day after the April arrests and canceled campus tours for two days, according to a college spokesperson. April is traditionally the decision time for prospective students who are weighing their college options.
But the college declined to provide further details, including whether any previously scheduled tours were canceled or if prospective students gave reasons for not enrolling at the institution. The college also declined to give any specifics about the enrollment or budget shortfalls.
“The college is planning now for necessary short-term and longer-term budget reductions,” said a written statement from the college spokesperson, “including how many staff may be affected. We are aware that budget challenges like this can be stressful for our work force, and we will do everything we can to provide timely information and support for those impacted.”
Jeff Levine, a college-admissions consultant in New York City and a former admissions professional, said if Jewish students were to see Emerson as not a safe space for them, then it could have a big impact on the college’s bottom line.
Emerson enrolls about 500 undergraduate students who identify as Jewish, about 14 percent of its total undergraduate enrollment, according to figures from Hillel International.
But given the college’s long affiliation with Hillel, Levine said that protests were not likely to be the only reason for an enrollment decline, even for Jewish students: “I could see how it might have an impact, but I don’t see how it could be a single factor.”
Federal data indicates that the college’s enrollment challenges have deeper roots. In 2019, applications to the college reached 15,353, but they declined by more than 21 percent by 2022.
What’s more, the college has had to admit many more students in recent years to maintain its enrollment. The percentage of students Emerson admits has increased from 33 percent to nearly 43 percent from 2019 to 2022, while enrollment has increased only 6 percent.
There are indications, too, that the college was preparing for the possibility of budget cuts before the president’s email, which explains that a “portion of our spending reductions in FY25 will come from the proposed budget cuts previously submitted by all departments.”
James S. Murphy, deputy director of higher-education policy at Education Reform Now, an advocacy group focused on college equity, said the other factors listed by the president, such as the troubled FAFSA rollout, were likely more to blame than reactions to the protests.
“I suspect Emerson is not going to be the last college to announce serious financial concerns this summer,” Murphy wrote in an email, “and that many of them will not have had a whisper of protest on their campus.”
