It was one of the paradoxes of the pandemic. As enrollment wavered at most four-year colleges and dropped by as much as 15 percent on average at community colleges, many public flagship universities raked in record classes. Total fall enrollment at the University of Kentucky, for example, has climbed steadily from 31,110 in 2020 to 33,885 in 2023, according to federal data. Many other public flagships have continued to experience record growth as Covid-19 wanes.
But not all large public universities are experiencing boom times. The University of Nebraska at Lincoln is facing a projected $12-million budget deficit, in part due to declining enrollment, and is evaluating possible program cuts. Its exact shortfall won’t be known until early next year, a spokesperson said, but Nebraska’s four-campus system is estimated to be $58 million in the red by the end of the 2025 fiscal year. West Virginia University faces at $45-million budget gap, in part because of missed enrollment goals, and has proposed eliminating dozens of majors and programs. (The University of Arizona revealed last month that it had entered a state of “financial crisis” due to fiscal miscalculations.)
Why is the tide that’s lifting Kentucky and many of its peers not buoying Nebraska and West Virginia? Are the latter two institutions’ troubles the first of more widespread ills to come for flagships? The answers are complicated. The flagging flagships are victims, experts say, of a complex set of factors that include their locations, regional demographics, and institutional strategy. But their current troubles also signal that big public research universities, once considered indomitable, aren’t immune from the forces now buffeting higher education.
Both West Virginia and Nebraska are moving to contain their immediate fiscal pinch. West Virginia University “made some difficult but necessary decisions to address those issues, and we are now turning the corner,” reads, in part, a statement to The Chronicle from Paula Congelio, vice president and chief financial officer. As a result, the institution “is financially stable. Our bonding agencies have recently reaffirmed our ratings.” In a statement to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln community last month, the chancellor, Rodney D. Bennett, said that while he couldn’t rule out more budget reductions in the future, “I firmly believe that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln’s best days lie ahead.”
Perhaps the most important root factor affecting the fate of institutions such as Nebraska and West Virginia is, as the real-estate cliché goes, location, location, location. “The public flagships that are struggling in the current environment tend to be located in states with flat or declining populations,” says Brendan Cantwell, a professor of education at Michigan State University.
Since most college students attend an institution within 50 miles of their home, regional student populations are critical. Like many other Midwestern states, Nebraska’s population of college-bound high-school graduates is expected to decline by as much as 15 percent through 2029, according to research by Nathan D. Grawe, a professor of economics at Carleton College. Grawe’s research also projects that West Virginia will lose up to 7.5 percent of its college-bound high-school graduates over the same period.
Enrollment at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has remained effectively flat over the last decade. The institution enrolled 24,207 students total in 2012 and 24,431 in 2021, according to federal data, though enrollment did rise as high as 26,079 in 2017. West Virginia University lost enrollment over the past 10 years, as the total number of students fell from 29,707 in 2012 to 25,474 in 2021.
Flagships in Southern states like Kentucky, on the other hand, are poised to benefit from population trends. All 10 of the fastest-growing U.S. counties in 2022 were in the South or West, according to U.S. Census data. The pandemic may have accelerated the ongoing population shift away from the Midwest and Northeast, says Robert Kelchen, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Kelchen, who moved from Seton Hall University, in New Jersey, to the Tennessee flagship in 2021, says that the advent of remote work enabled white-collar employees to relocate “to where they view things as more free,” with more moderate weather and lower taxes.
Many flagships recruit students from outside their immediate area, and outside their states, and location can present a handicap there, too. This is where the ineffable brand of a big public university, with its national profile and promise of packed football games and parties, starts to play a role. “West Virginia just isn’t seen as as much of a destination,” Kelchen says. Morgantown, W.Va., where West Virginia University is located, is a college town, but arguably it doesn’t have a reputation as a college town in the same way as Athens, Ga., home of the University of Georgia, or State College, Pa., home of Pennsylvania State University. If a university is in a desirable location, it doesn’t even need to be a flagship to boom. With its beach-adjacent setting and strong local economy, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington “is bursting at the seams,” Kelchen notes.
Students who are choosing among several colleges often opt for institutions in more-urban settings, says Craig Goebel, a principal of the Art & Science Group, a company that consults with colleges on market strategy, and that decision isn’t just about more restaurant options and better concerts. “Can they get the internships and career connections that they’re looking for in those areas?” he asks. “Is that a place that they would want to live after graduation,” he says, which “can often be an important factor.”
A flagship trying to reach beyond its space needs a position and appeal that’s competitively compelling to be able to do battle outside of its own catchment area, and even in its own catchment area against others that are intruding.
Also, reputation matters. While the Nebraska and West Virginia flagships are the biggest and most prestigious institutions in their states, they are not among the elites of their peers. Although both institutions are ranked as R1 research universities in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, indicating the highest levels of research activity, “WVU isn’t Berkeley,” Cantwell says. A graduating high-school student in the Midwest thinking about college options may consider the University of Iowa, Kansas, or Colorado first, says Kelchen, as Nebraska often isn’t “seen as to be as prestigious as some of the other public flagships even just in that region.”
The appeal of a public flagship to residents of its state should be obvious. The appeal of that same flagship outside its homegrown audience may be less so. Within the increasingly aggressive enrollment landscape, “other institutions are invading your space,” says David Strauss, a principal of the Art & Science Group. “A flagship trying to reach beyond its space needs a position and appeal that’s competitively compelling to be able to do battle outside of its own catchment area, and even in its own catchment area against others that are intruding.” Whatever that appeal is — new programs, a new strategy, a new way of presenting the education the university offers — it will probably require time and money to establish, two things an institution facing multimillion-dollar budget gaps may lack in abundance.
West Virginia and Nebraska, in particular, may also be struggling with enrollment due to rising skepticism toward higher education, generally — especially among men. Young men are a demographic that’s increasingly opting out of college, Cantwell says, either because the relatively strong economy has kept jobs plentiful for those without college degrees or because they think it’s not for them.
The shift away from college for young men may be more cultural than economic, says Paul Garton, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at East Tennessee State University. Garton, who grew up in rural West Virginia and got his undergraduate degree from West Virginia University, says that his current institution is flush with students, but the growth is coming from women — they make up 61 percent of undergraduate enrollment, according to federal data, compared to 54 percent at the Knoxville flagship 100 miles away. For young men in Appalachia, the long-term increased wages inherent in a college degree doesn’t seem to matter, he says. “So, much as it is, we don’t need higher education, because we have what we need now.”
Going forward, the University of Nebraska and West Virginia University will probably have to think differently about how they plan their enrollment strategies. “They need to broaden where they’re drawing students from, because there’s not a well of students who they’re not taking” within their own state borders, Cantwell says. “And that’s pretty challenging.”
Looking Bullish
The recent troubles at West Virginia and Nebraska have been shaped by macro trends, but also, in part, by decisions made by state officials and campus leaders. Smart strategy has helped some flagships succeed, or at least not fall behind.
Many flagship leaders have put a premium on making sure their institutions will attract students and families. The University of Kentucky is one of the institutions that has experienced bounding growth in recent years. Total enrollment grew from 28,034 in 2012 to 30,390 in 2021, according to federal data, even though the state’s population has remained effectively flat throughout the 21st century so far. When Eli Capilouto took over as president in 2011, the university “had residence halls that were dilapidated, over 50 years old,” he says, “and didn’t lend themselves to good living and learning.” During his tenure, the institution has averaged investing a million dollars a day to upgrade its facilities, including more than $900 million in private capital through a public-private partnership to revamp its housing. “As people have told me,” he adds, “if you invest in where my child is going to live and learn, it says a lot about your priorities.”
Other flagships have seized opportunities to recruit students from beyond their state borders — indeed, the success of some public flagships has helped flagships in other states. In-state students who don’t get into the increasingly competitive University of Texas at Austin, University of Georgia, or Georgia Institute of Technology have helped fuel the boom at flagships in neighboring states, Cantwell says. More “name brand” public universities also have an easier time recruiting international students.
Flagships in more-populous states also have an advantage over their peers in less populous states like Nebraska and West Virginia — they have longer wait lists to draw from to supplement feeble fall classes. Of course, pulling from the wait list means admitting a student who might have attended another institution, sometimes another institution in the same state. Nanci Tessier, a principal at the Art & Science Group, recalls a recent conversation with an administrator, who works in enrollment management at a public flagship university, who told her, “‘We got our class, but we killed our regional publics in doing it.’”
University leadership controls enrollment strategy and fiscal planning, and those two factors ultimately shape whether a college thrives or suffers from year to year. West Virginia University had ambitious enrollment goals — E. Gordon Gee, the president, had vowed to raise enrollment to 40,000 students — and those goals weren’t completely out of line with what was happening at other flagships in the South, Kelchen says, but “they didn’t meet those wild expectations.”
Their expectations shouldn’t have been so wild, Garton, of East Tennessee State, says, and now a university, and a state, will pay the cost. “It’s a pretty easy statistical technique to predict what enrollments will be,” he says. “But you also have to understand higher education. And the trick is, you get people that know one but not the other, and you don’t get a whole lot of people that know both. Those are the people that you need to be listening to.”
Despite a few exceptions, things still look pretty bullish for flagships. Kelchen says that the appeal of the big public-university experience — the football games, the Greek life, etc. — seems to be durable with contemporary students, and population trends tend to support sustained growth, or at least stability, for flagships in the South and West. Grawe’s demographic research indicates that, unlike many other parts of the country, the Atlanta area and parts of North and South Carolina are expected to gain college-bound high-school graduates by 2029.
The only thing likely to limit the growth of some big state universities are the states themselves. The Universities of South Carolina and Tennessee both enacted policies this year to guarantee admission to their flagships for the top 10 percent of in-state high-school graduates, which could lead to curbing growth at the institutions to make sure they remain accessible. Full flagships also sometimes lead to more anemic enrollments at regional public universities, Kelchen says. “The big question underlying all this is, how much will states let their flagships grow?”
