Student enrollment across the University of Hawaii’s 10-campus system continues to fall, though not as dramatically as at colleges nationwide, while “on time” graduation rates for seven UH campuses have swelled to record highs — trends caused in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are 48,373 students currently enrolled in the UH system this term, down from 49,773 students a year earlier, for a 2.8% decrease, according to UH data.

“My belief is the pandemic is still a bit of a drag on enrollment,” UH President David Lassner said in a Honolulu Star-Advertiser interview. “We saw a big drop in the first two pandemic classes … with a big drop in their enrolling in college anywhere, anytime.”

Financial pressure caused by the pandemic’s economic instability has nudged some students into seeking jobs instead of pursuing higher education, Lassner said. In addition, lagging academic achievement among high- schoolers during the pandemic “doesn’t really give them confidence going on (into college),” he said.

The largest enrollment decreases are at UH Maui College (-9.3%) and UH Hilo (-8.2%), while the smallest are at UH Manoa (-0.1%) and Windward Community College (-0.1%).

Among categories of students, the biggest enrollment declines have come among transfer students (-12%), undergraduate students (-4.9%) and graduate students (-20% at UH Hilo and -2.7% at UH Manoa).

Still, UH’s overall enrollment decline this year is not as large as the nationwide drop-off of 4.1%, reported by the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Enrollment nationwide has been inching downward since reaching a record high in 2010– 2011, after the Great Recession. College enrollment traditionally drops when unemployment rates are low, a UH news release said.

While UH is nowhere near a crisis in enrollment, declines can be especially hard on smaller campuses, making it “hard for us to offer all the things that people in that community need, and the overhead of being a campus is significant,” Lassner said. The shifting enrollment is compelling UH to find more efficient ways to offer courses and student services statewide, including online, he said.

Helping to prop up UH’s enrollment numbers is growth in first-time student enrollment. This fall 7,201 first-time freshmen enrolled at UH campuses, a 2.7% increase from 2021 that followed a 6.4% increase in 2020.

In fact, UH Manoa, the system’s flagship campus, this fall has its largest-ever freshman class of 3,106 students, surpassing the 3,000 mark for the first time. Incoming freshmen were up 5.7% from last year’s record high.

UH Manoa Provost Michael Bruno said recruitment has been boosted by rising attention on UH, including recent strong rankings against other universities and big awards, such as a $50 million gift from billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, for research about the impact of climate change on the ocean.

“It’s something we are proud of, but also we have to rise to the challenge that presents, including offering more sections of courses, advising services and counseling services for these young learners,” Bruno said.

Meanwhile, rising graduation rates at most UH campus can be a double-edged sword.

On one hand, UH takes pride in them. Lassner lauded UH students, faculty and support staff for doing “an amazing job of maintaining focus on paths to graduation through the last two years of the pandemic.” He credits efforts that began years ago, such as improved student advising and online tracking of credits, and a stronger emphasis on offering more of the classes that are required for graduation.

But at the same time, faster graduations are a drain on student enrollment. “Our total enrollment will go down unless we bring in more new students each year,” he said.

Campuses with record high on-time graduation rates for first-time, full-time freshmen are UH Manoa, UH Hilo, UH West Oahu, Honolulu Community College, Kauai Community College, Leeward Community College and Windward Community College. UH Manoa’s four-year graduation rate of 44% set a record for a 12th straight year.

Lassner said healthy college enrollment and graduation rates are crucial not just to UH, but to the state.

“Hawaii needs a more- educated citizenry. And so if people aren’t enrolling, then Hawaii has a problem. It’s not just a university problem,” he said. “We know that college completion is associated with higher income levels, more resilience, people who are laid off coming back to work faster … healthy lifestyles leading to longer life, voting, volunteering. There’s a whole bunch of really good things associated with people who have college degrees.”

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Record UH graduation rates

Seven of the University of Hawaii’s 10 campuses, including UH Manoa, have reported record proportions of students reaching graduation. An asterisk denotes a record high.

>> UH Manoa: *44.1% graduated in four years; *62.3% in six years

>> UH Hilo: *30.1% in four years; 42.5% in six years

>> UH West Oahu: *28.6% in four years, 32.7% in six years

>> UH community colleges overall: *13.8% on-time graduation (two years); *19.5% success rate (includes students who graduated in two years and students on track to graduate in two years, but transferring to a four-year school)

>> Hawaii Community College: 15.1% on-time graduation, 17.2% success rate

>> Honolulu Community College: *18.2% on-time graduation, *26.5% success rate

>> Kapiolani Community College : 8.8% on-time graduation, 13.8% success rate

>> Kauai Community College: *17.9% on-time graduation, 24.6% success rate

>> Leeward Community College: *14.8% on-time graduation, *21.9% success rate

>> UH Maui College: 12.7% on-time graduation; 18.1% success rate

>> Windward Community College: *14.7% on-time graduation, 19.3% success rate

Source: University of Hawaii