As Economy Improves, Tennessee’s Public Colleges Try To Maintain Enrollment

Enrollment has decreased in many of Tennessee’s public institutions this fall, even as the state is pushing to increase the number of people with college degrees. College administrators say they’re working against something that tends to bring those numbers down: a good economy.

Tristan Denley, vice chancellor of academic affairs at the Tennessee Board of Regents, told the board this month there’s a strong correlation with the rise and fall of unemployment.

“As economies improve, so people tend to go into the workforce rather than education,” he said. “As economies take a downturn, so people run to education rather than the workforce.”

The numbers largely align with that theory: In most of the colleges and universities in the Tennessee Board of Regents, enrollment over the last decade rose steadily until 2010 or 2011, and it’s fallen steadily ever since, along with unemployment.

Denley said TBR is hoping for a boost in enrollment from Tennessee Reconnect, the statewide program that targets adults who never finished their college degree.

“We anticipate that we will be able to bend that trend, and it will be a welcome change when we do so, but it’s a powerful trend for us to bend,” he said.

He also pointed out that the state’s relatively small technical colleges are growing, and thanks to Tennessee’s free community college program, the number of students entering directly from high school is still much higher than in years before the program went into effect.