Boxer Mike Tyson, who last month returned to the ring at age 54 to headline the biggest pay-per-view event of 2020 with an exhibition bout against Roy Jones, Jr., is credited with this piece of strategic planning wisdom: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Consider George Washington University punched in the face. According to an article several weeks ago in the GW student newspaper, the Hatchet, one of the casualties of the coronavirus pandemic is the university’s 20/30 strategic plan announced back in the summer of 2019.
That plan, one of President Thomas LeBlanc’s signature initiatives, attracted attention both for the “20,” its call to reduce undergraduate enrollment by 20% over the next five years, and for the “30,” the plan to increase the share of STEM majors on campus to 30%. The 20/30 plan was put on hold last April, and while GW has made no formal announcement, the newspaper article suggests that it is now dead in the water.
GW’s 20/30 plan is far from the only strategic initiative that lots of colleges and universities will have to rethink in light of the pandemic, and in fact one of the lessons for all of us from 2020 is that any notion that we are in control is a delusion. This year, both personally and institutionally, emotionally and pragmatically, has been about reacting, pivoting, and adapting to changed circumstances and changed assumptions.
I wrote about the GW plan for Inside Higher Ed back in the summer of 2019 when it was first announced. The plan was revolutionary in its announced goal to lower undergraduate enrollment by 20%, a “rightsizing” that would return enrollment to levels from 2013 prior to a five-year expansion. In my experience, most references to “rightsizing” are after the fact attempts to rationalize enrollment decline, so announcing the intention to downsize was bold and risky.
Even before COVID, GW was trying to work through the implications of intentionally lowering enrollment, developing six different models for how lower enrollment would impact considerations including diversity, academic quality, male enrollment on campus, and of course net revenue. President LeBlanc had estimated that the enrollment reduction would cost the university $16 million dollar per year over a four-year period.
In a sense, the pandemic accelerated the plan and highlighted its challenges. This fall GW saw an 8% drop in undergraduate enrollment, enrolling 300 fewer students than a year ago. I give GW credit for not trying to spin this fall’s drop as “all part of the plan.”
So what are the larger issues that GW helps shed light on? One is the recognition that no matter what our noble aspirations might be, higher education is first and foremost a business. It requires revenue to keep the lights on and pay our salaries and health insurance. One of the side effects of the pandemic is economic, and colleges and universities have not been immune. That has already played out in retrenchment of faculty and staff, athletic teams, and even entire academic programs.
What does that mean for college admission? It probably means that ability to pay will become even more of a plus factor than it has been previously. In a period of economic crisis, net revenue will take precedence over other competing priorities. Given the news stories the last few weeks (including the previous ECA post) about declining enrollment in college nationally, impacting most the very students who most need a college education to change the course of their life and provide economic opportunity, we must hope and ensure that concern for net revenue doesn’t push aside all other considerations.
If the pandemic is going to advantage further students who are already advantaged, that may be true at an institutional level as well. Jeff Selingo’s new book, Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions (which will be the focus of an upcoming ECA post) makes an interesting and useful distinction between colleges that are “sellers” and those that are “buyers.” Sellers are those with far more qualified applicants than spaces available and buyers are those who have to work hard to make their class with substantial tuition discounts.
The pandemic is clearly impacting both groups, but I anticipate a growing gap between those groups. The nation’s most selective colleges and universities are going to be minimally impacted, but may even thrive in the new normal. I hear rumors that Harvard may announce tomorrow that it was up nearly 50% in Restrictive Early Action applicants. To use an agrarian metaphor, Harvard and its ilk are ranches or even plantations (from a size and wealth perspective only). Meanwhile, the landscape for colleges that are subsistence farms will be more challenging and threatening, and some may face foreclosure from the marketplace.
But there is also a third group, and I’m going to be particularly interested in what happens to the schools in that cohort. They are all good, reputable, selective places that fall a rung down on the selectivity pecking order. I have friends and colleagues who predict that the institutions in that category will go heavy on admitting a larger portion of their classes in Early Decision and will increase usage of other enrollment management tools such as reliance on demonstrated interest and strategic use of wait lists.
I’m not as convinced. I think there are going to be a number of good institutions that won’t be able to maintain the illusion of selectivity in the new marketplace, that will have to be satisfied to enroll a class with less control over the competing priorities and metrics. They may not be knocked out by 2020, just knocked down with less confidence in their ability to take a punch.
This is the final Ethical College Admissions post for the year. What a year it has been. Thanks to all of you who take the time to read the blog, and thanks to all of you who write in support.
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or Festivus (airing of grievances, anyone?), let us not forget the words of Tiny Tim (the Dickens character, not the ukulele-playing 1960s novelty singer). “May God bless us, every one.”