Pittsburgh-area colleges and universities, an engine for the region's economic growth, will battle for students even more fiercely in the decade ahead.
Starting next year, the number of high school graduates in the state is expected to decrease, and the drop is projected to be most severe in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
"I'm very nervous about it," said Michael Poll, vice president for enrollment at Chatham University. "We typically draw around 60 percent of our students from Western Pennsylvania. Any small decline in that number could really affect our numbers."
The state Department of Education projects the number of graduating seniors in 111 districts in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties will plummet from 27,616 students in 2007-08 to 23,836 students in 2016-17. The cause: declining birth rates and an exodus of families from the state.
That's a decrease of 13.7 percent.
This year, 10 schools experienced a decline, ranging from five students at Grove City College to 246 at Robert Morris University. Enrollment increased at the area's other 21 schools.
"Being a school that has recruited heavily in Allegheny (County), the decreases we're going to see through 2016 are dramatic," said Thomas Schaefer, director of admissions at La Roche College in McCandless. Its enrollment dropped by 74 students.
In response, schools are casting their nets wider -- going west and, in some cases, fishing overseas for students. Schools are luring them with alumni who live in those areas, online tools and fatter financial aid packages.
"We're targeting states that we've never gone to before," said Sherri Bett, director of admissions at Seton Hill University in Greensburg. "We're going to California, Arizona, Texas, Nevada."
Amanda J. Lee, a freshman from Dallas, Texas, chose Seton Hill because she wanted a small Catholic school where she could play lacrosse at Division II level.
Lee loves the beauty of the campus, its trees and the athletic facilities.
"And I just felt comfortable, like I wouldn't get lost on campus," she said.
In the past three years, Chatham doubled its international enrollment from about 45 to more than 90 students. The university in Shadyside is targeting students on the West Coast and in Texas.
"We're pretty heavy in Southeast Asia now," Poll said. "That's really the biggest place."
Gulkrukhsor Sharipova, 22, transferred last year to Chatham from a university in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia. That's a 17-hour flight with a connection in Turkey.
Sharipova recalled that she prayed the day before she told her parents about her decision to study in America. She said she was shaking when she broke the news to them.
Sharipova likes how relationships -- even with faculty -- are less formal than at home.
"Here, it's like freedom, whatever you do," she said. "I'm meant to be here."
Three schools that had declining enrollments this year were branches of Penn State University -- in McKeesport, New Kensington and Fayette.
"We don't want it to be a trend," said AnneRohrback, executive director of undergraduate admissions for Penn State in University Park.
In anticipation of fewer Pennsylvania students, Waynesburg University recruiters have traveled more extensively, and the school has expanded its ads in some national Christian publications. St. Vincent College is scouring Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey for students.
Clarion University is expanding its online programs and recruiting in Eastern Pennsylvania, one of the few areas of the state where the population is growing.
Last year, Indiana University of Pennsylvania received permission from the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to charge out-of-state students with a 3.0 grade-point average 150 percent of the in-state tuition rate. Out-of-staters with lower GPAs continue to pay 250 percent of the Pennsylvania rate.
With no additional housing on its Oakland campus, the University of Pittsburgh is not planning to grow.
Betsy A. Porter, Pitt's director of admissions and financial aid, hopes that better academic preparation in high schools and lower dropout rates might offset the state's declining number of high school seniors.
Statewide, the dropout rate of high school students declined from 2.6 percent in 1996-97 to 1.9 percent in 2005-06, the latest year for which data are available, according to the Department of Education.
In the past seven years, Duquesne University increased the proportion of students from outside Pennsylvania from 15 percent to about 25 percent, said Paul Cukanna, associate vice president for enrollment management. Its goal, he said, is to enroll 40 percent of its freshmen from out of state.
He said Duquesne in recent years has been targeting Florida, Texas and California. Those states, along with New York, will account for one-third of all college-age students by 2010, Cukanna said.
But recruiting out-of-staters doesn't come cheap.
Cukanna said Duquesne has to lure them with bigger financial aid packages because of the difficulty of moving far distances. As a result, the Uptown university has devoted 40 percent of its resources out of state to get 25 percent of its students.
"Sometimes, schools will go into a new market and expect to come back with a busload of students," he said. "It doesn't work that way."
Pennsylvania is not the only state dealing with a declining number of high school grads.
The Rust Belt, the Upper Midwest, prairie states such as North and South Dakota, and some Northeastern states have tackled the issue, said Jacqueline E. King, assistant vice president of the Washington-based American Council on Education.
"It will mean more competition," she said. "It also will mean the schools that are most innovative and look for new populations will have the most success."
Larger text
Smaller text
Print this article
E-mail this article
