Enrollment at most of the University of Hawaii’s 10 campuses is continuing to slip. Among the reasons is the tug of our strong economy — prompting some would-be students to pass up or postpone college to enter the healthy job market.
The state’s jobless rate in August hit a 10-year low of 2.8 percent. That means Hawaii is essentially at full employment — nearly everyone who wants a job has one. Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.4 percent.
Honolulu Community College and Leeward Community College, which have strong trades programs, are seeing the biggest enrollment declines from last fall — drops of 8.7 percent to 3,563 students, and 6.3 percent to 6,805, respectively. In response, UH officials are rightly attempting to keep working students and others tethered to higher ed goals while clearly communicating the certainty that a college education can pay off over decades of economic ups and downs.
According to the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization projections, a UH graduate with an associate’s degree on average makes $360,000 more in his or her lifetime over a high school classmate who never went to college. The average UH bachelor’s degree-holder who lives and works here makes $950,000 more; and the earnings gap bumps up to $1.56 million for a postgraduate degree.
When potential career earnings are bundled with non-monetary higher ed benefits — college grads are more likely to be civically engaged and healthier than other groups — it’s clear that our public university system serves a vital role in the islands.
A commendable effort to spur enrollment and academic success for low-income households is the just-launched Hawai‘i Promise scholarship program, which is assisting nearly 1,000 students this fall. Funded by the Legislature with an allocation of $1.8 million, the program provides for needs not met by other types of financial aid.
Its goal: free in-state tuition for qualified community college students as well as money for fees, books, supplies and transportation. With cost barriers removed, these students can realistically seize college opportunities as the means to higher-paying jobs and a better quality of life.
UH systemwide enrollment figures, as of Monday, marked a dip of 3.3 percent from last fall to 51,674. Only fledgling UH-West Oahu saw growth, a 4.9 percent increase over last fall to 3,082 students. The small four-year school, which five years ago moved to its permanent home in Kapolei, credits success, in part, to its E Ala Pono academic progress campaign, which targets struggling students and provides them with timely support services.
Enrollment at the flagship Manoa campus dropped by 2.5 percent from last fall to 17,612 students — continuing a trend set in fall 2014, when enrollment slid below 20,000 for the first time in more than a decade. UH President David Lassner, who is serving as UH-Manoa’s interim chancellor, is pushing for a full rebound within three years.
Among the bright spots in the latest round of UH-Manoa figures is the first-year retention rate, which climbed by 2 percentage points to 78.8 percent, exceeding recent national averages. Plus, the campus cannot be faulted for lower enrollment tied to an efficiency-focused campaign through which the four-year graduation rate has increased to a new high of 34 percent this year — up from 17.5 percent in 2010.
Besides the current workforce lure, a general demographic shift is affecting enrollment. The traditional college-age crowd is simply not as large as in previous decades. At UH-Manoa, the baby boomers lifted enrollment to its highest-ever point (22,371) in the early 1970s. Since then it has been in slow decline, mostly.
The push to reverse the decline by attracting and retaining more college-ready students — in traditional and non-traditional age brackets — must continue. The UH system has capacity to handle a significantly larger enrollment, and almost half of its operational budget flows from tuition.
Administrators and faculty can make further strides through persistent efforts to engage would-be students; updating degree programs to reflect our economic outlook; and continuing to provide financial incentives aimed at boosting graduation rates.
