I am a proud emeritus professor of the University of North Dakota. I spent 39 years on that campus and more than 40 years of service if you count my online courses since retiring. I spent a good portion of this time as the chair of one of the larger departments on campus and perhaps because of this role and because I played a role in multiple programs on campus, I continue to follow campus and state politics.
I see today that UND is down 500 students in Fall enrollment. The institution is down nearly 2000 students since its max size in 2012. Higher ed enrollments are down nationwide, but declines at UND are large as a percentage of total (now about 13,500) and problematic because small, state institutions struggle to reach the critical mass in the first place. Many institutions label themselves universities. I am not certain what is required to satisfy this label, but I am would think in terms of institutions that are large enough and with sufficient funds to sustain multiple Ph.D. and professional programs (law, medicine, etc.). Smaller institutions certainly meet these requirements, but they have revenue sources that UND does not have.
I believe critical mass must be achieved to survive. You need sufficient resources to prevent programs involved from cannibalizing each other. You need sufficient resources to attract competitive students and faculty. Quality attracts quality. Quality attracts external funding from sources that trusts the institution can deliver on the promises individual faculty members make in applying for competitive grants. You need multiple programs of quality to allow for the cross-fertilization so necessary for creativity and innovation. If you are unwilling or unable to meet these standards, a long slide into mediocrity will occur. I have begun to think of it via a business example. I call it the Sears effect. You begin by cutting back on staff. You try to stock less merchandise. My local store even seemed to reduce the lighting. Each compromise with quality reduced the attractiveness of the experience to customers further reducing revenue. You don’t compete by backing by trying to be cheap.
Financial conditions in North Dakota have not been good. Revenue from oil is down drastically, although now it may be recovering a bit. Farm commodity prices have been low and with the tariff, situation may be going lower. Canadian business has been challenged by an unfavorable currency conversion and no by the trade war with Canada.
North Dakota is a very Republican state and as such has always avoiding collecting funds from citizens. The oil boom allowed the case to be made for tax reductions and the move toward lower taxes were not reversed when oil revenue took a drastic dip. Higher education took a tremendous hit. Multiple years of real money allocations roughly 10% a year.
So, you have a decline in state support. You have a substantial decline in tuition revenue. You have a small size, state institution trying to compete. The combination has been significant. You reduce faculty numbers. You hire non-tenure track folks. You try alternative measures such as increased marketing and prioritization of programs. You increase the proportion of administrators to working faculty members (I admit this is counter-intuitive and I would be hard pressed to explain how this would help.). You expect faculty members to generate more external funds assuming they will be able somehow to compete with all of the other institutions who have the same idea.
The slide has begun. Actually, it has probably been underway for several years.
I agree this is a very pessimistic analysis. Unfortunately, I see it as honest. I am not certain what I see as a reasonable response from the U. With the exception of the thing with increasing administrators, it seems to be making the moves it can to slow the slide. My real concern for North Dakota institutions is that it will reach the point at which the enrollment of students from Minnesota changes (a very large portion of UND students are from Minnesota). A change in the way these students and their tuition dollars prop up the larger ND institutions would push the institutions over the cliff.
This is the point at which the state needs to step up. The U needs the funding that has been cut by the state and probably a little more. The other variables I can identify are unlikely to improve or even stabilize without this commitment. How will the state do this? This is really for the politicians to decide, but the cutting tax thing must be reversed. Consolidating the number of campuses may not save much money, but it would be a way to at least address the decline in numbers. I describe the present situation as having the number of institutions within a state with a population the size of Omaha.