[A]s enrollments nose-dive and strain the finances of the Northeast’s smaller colleges, accreditors are checking in.
Representatives from the New England Commission of Higher Education, the federally recognized accreditor for the six-state region, will meet with officials from Goddard College this week. But the Plainfield school isn’t the only Vermont college where NECHE is taking a closer look – both Green Mountain College and Southern Vermont College have recently seen some extra scrutiny.
Barbara Brittingham, the president of NECHE, declined to discuss the specifics of why any particular Vermont school has come before the commission outside of its normal 10-year review cycle. NECHE does not typically release much information about the concerns it has with schools until it decides to take action, like when it placed the College of St. Joseph in Rutland on probation earlier this summer.
But Brittingham did say that the accrediting body’s commissioners, who have long been tracking enrollment at the region’s schools, would sit down this week to discuss better ways to monitor the trend and give institutions feedback.
“Things are generally challenging these days for many institutions in New England and it would seem, in general that farther north is more difficult, when you look at population trends,” Brittingham said. “Institutions that don’t have a big endowment or another source of significant income, tend to have their finances tied pretty closely to their enrollment. So when there are enrollment challenges, there are financial challenges.”
At Goddard, school officials have submitted a report to NECHE ahead of their meeting this week. Accreditors are indeed worried about enrollment and finances, as well as changes in leadership, college administrators said. Academic quality is not in question, they added.
“I think (NECHE) will be very happy to see the changes that we’ve already made and the plans that we will have moving forward,” said Steven James, Goddard’s interim president.
Enrollment at the school stood at 438 in spring 2018, according to Goddard officials. That’s down from 804 in 2010. Meanwhile, nearly 90 percent of the school’s revenues come from tuition and fees, according to federal statistics.
The school has also seen significant turnover in its upper administrative ranks. Former president Robert Kenny announced last year he would not seek to renew his contract after four-and-half years at the helm. The school is at work on a national search for a new leader.
Meanwhile, three dean’s offices saw reshuffling last year. In January, the dean of community life left and the position’s responsibilities were redistributed. James, the acting president, stepped into the vacant academic dean position in February; he previously was the school’s Psychology and Mental Health Counseling program director. And the dean of enrollment, who oversaw both marketing and admissions, left. That role was replaced with two separate positions: a director of marketing and a director of admissions.
James said an announcement is expected regarding the search for a new president. He said the college is working with its faculty and staff unions to make decisions about where to make personnel cuts in order to “right size” the school.
“It’s very gratifying that we’re having to make these tough decisions with them as opposed to going back and forth,” he said.
In Poultney, Green Mountain College will submit a report to NECHE next summer and get a special visit from accreditors in the fall. Tom Maughs-Pugh, GMC’s provost, said NECHE is checking in because of enrollment, which dropped 18 percent between 2013 and 2018.
“I’m not nervous, but if you’re in private nonprofit higher education in the Northeast these days – I think you’re always a little concerned. Because enrollment’s tough. It’s really tough,” Maughs-Pugh said.
The school’s enrollment was flat this fall compared to last year, he said, which is an improvement of prior years’ steady declines. Additionally, the school is trying to firm up retention, in order to keep the students it currently has. It’s also expanding its online graduate degree offerings.
“They’re doing well,” Maughs-Pugh said of online courses. “They’re not constrained by geography, so they get us out of the Northeast in terms of student recruitment. And they really appeal to working adults.”
Southern Vermont College underwent a “focused evaluation” from NECHE about a year ago, according to its president, David Evans, also because of declining enrollments.
“Following that visit last year, we have implemented a number of new strategies to increase our enrollment, some of which were suggested by our NECHE visitors and some of which were the result of internal discussions,” Evans wrote in an email. Those strategies include a new focus on retention, as well as more robust recruitment efforts outside New England, including in the Baltimore-Washington corridor and in California. The school also just announced a new affiliation with Southwestern Vermont Health Care in a nursing education program.
Accreditation ensures that schools meet certain minimum standards of educational quality, as well as financial and institutional health. And while accreditation is technically voluntary, colleges that are not accredited cannot receive federal funds – including federal financial aid. Credits from unaccredited schools also often don’t transfer.
NECHE was, until recently, known as the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. The re-branding was announced last month.
