By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

Enrollment at the three state universities has been holding steady recently, but there are some challenges ahead.

Regents associate academic officer Jason Pontius says enrollment remains down from the record peak in the fall of 2016. “Forty percent of that drop over that time are from Chinese national students who are choosing not to attend our universities,” he says. “And another factor that is influencing that is nationally, there’s been about a seven to ten percentage point drop in the percent of high school graduates that are choosing to go to college.”

He says there has been some recovery of the international students. “That recovery is not coming from Chinese students. It is actually coming, in part, from students from India that are increasingly attending our universities,” Pontius says. The enrollment at Iowa State, the University of Iowa and Northern Iowa is about 81 percent undergraduate students,
and around 59 percent of those students are Iowa residents.

Pontius says one of the issues ahead is a drop in the size of high school classes. “Looking at a 15% decline between 2025 and 2029,” he says. “That data is coming from American Community Survey data. It is a sample, and generally speaking, the samples are pretty good.” Pontius says the decline is going to likely hit nationally, but it is not evenly distributed, “So there are major differences by region and state. The two regions that are expected to be hit the hardest are the Northeast and the Midwest, and with the least amount of impact in generally the South,” Pontius says.

Pontius says some are calling it an enrollment cliff, but he doesn’t believe it will be that severe. “While the nation looks like the class of fall of 2025 is going to be the high water mark, we are going to go it looks like a little bit higher in 2026 before the decline begins,” he says. “So yes, there is a decline. I hesitate to call it a cliff. And yes, we are looking to have the second one starting again around 2034.” He says another issue the state schools face are more high school graduates going directly into the workforce and bypassing college. “That climbed in particular during COVID. Obviously, the hourly wage has gone up significantly during that time, and that may be driving some of it, and it also probably is driving some of the decline in college going rates,” he says.

Pontius made his comments during a report the Board of Regents at their meeting last week.