Fall enrollment at University of Hawaii at Hilo declined for the second year in a row, despite hopes by administrators the university could maintain last year’s student levels.
Fall enrollment at University of Hawaii at Hilo declined for the second year in a row, despite hopes by administrators the university could maintain last year’s student levels.
“We’re the same percentage down this year as we were last year,” UH-Hilo Chancellor Donald Straney said Tuesday. “It’s a (trend) that’s going around all campuses. … We had hoped to hold even, but the demography worked against us.”
Straney explained campuses in Hawaii and across the country have seen a drop-off in enrollments as the economy continues to improve and students opt to enter the job force in lieu of pursuing their education.
The same drop in enrollment is evident in all categories, he added, including in-state students, mainland students and international students.
As of Tuesday, Hilo enrollment showed the largest drop in the UH system during the same time last year at 2.9 percent, while Manoa saw a decrease of 2.5 percent. West Oahu, which opened its new campus in Kapolei in August 2012, saw enrollment increase by 12.7 percent.
UH-Hilo’s enrollment peaked in 2012 at 4,157 students after eight years of continual growth, according to UH’s Institutional Research &Analysis Office.
Hawaii Community College in Hilo, meanwhile, has experienced enrollment declines for three years in a row, with numbers dipping this year by 6.4 percent. The school’s enrollment peaked in the fall of 2011 at 3,917 students.
All seven of the state’s community colleges saw enrollment declines this year of between 2.9 percent and 6.9 percent.
The decrease in enrollees means the UH-Hilo campus will take a hit of about $1 million to its anticipated revenues, Straney explained.
“It’s a significant amount of money, but we’re not anticipating we’ll have to reduce budgets this year,” he said, adding departments on campus will be asked to hold off on spending about 1 percent of their budgets until the exact impact of the reduction in revenue is understood.
Freshman retention at UH-Hilo between fall semester and the end of spring semester was 92 percent, Straney reported, while dropoff at the beginning of sophomore year is more pronounced, with a 70 percent retention rate.
“We hope to cut that 30 percent drop in half, though,” Straney said.
With the university placing increased emphasis on keeping its freshman students on campus their first year, and offering more activities during the day and evening, administrators hope they’ll encourage students to build stronger ties to the community, which has been shown to aid greatly in freshman retention.
“We want to give them more reasons to connect,” Straney said.
Nationwide, college enrollment declined by close to 500,000 between 2012 and 2013, marking the second year in a row a drop of that magnitude has been recorded, according to a Sept. 24 U.S. Census Bureau report.
“The cumulative two-year drop of 930,000 was larger than any college enrollment drop before the recent recession,” the report reads.
Kurt Bauman, chief of the Census Bureau’s Education and Social Stratification Branch, explained the recent declines in enrollment came after a huge period of expansion. From 2006-11, college enrollment grew by 3.2 million, he said.
“This level of growth exceeded the total enrollment increase of the previous 10 years combined,” he said.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.