Layoffs at colleges and universities, once a fairly rare occurrence, are now becoming more commonplace. If you’ve yet to come across a story in your local news about an institution announcing layoffs and cuts, you probably will soon. Twice in the past few months I’ve opened up the local paper to find prominent articles about universities laying off staff. It’s always startling, and thoughts immediately go to colleagues and the impact on them and their library. At one of the institutions, Drexel University, the change had to do with a significant strategic shift in enrollment practices. It resulted in fewer students and less revenue. At LaSalle University it was simply a case of too few students enrolling. The initial enrollment projections indicated a shortfall of over 100 incoming freshman students, approximately 15 percent fewer students than the previous year's freshman class. It seems like too few students to have this degree of impact, but at a tuition-driven institution, even a small drop in enrollment can translate to millions in lost revenue. In neither case did I hear of any librarians losing their positions, but in addition to layoffs, both institutions will undoubtedly be making budget cuts that could eventually mean bad news for the library.

More to Come

When a Sweet Briar College announces it is closing, that news reverberates throughout higher education as it signals that long-time and well respected institutions are just as vulnerable to financial losses as a poorly run, risky for-profit institutions. While it’s encouraging that Sweet Briar was given a second chance of one more year to recover, it will be no easy task, particularly if it wants to remain a single-sex institution. The outlook for schools like Sweet Briar remains cloudy. In its most recent higher education outlook, Moody’s Investor Service highlighted a “persistent inability among small colleges to increase revenue.” Over the past ten years, five colleges have closed annually. Moody’s predicts that as many as 15 more institutions will close by 2017. It all comes back to declining enrollment. Add to that the impact of coming demographic change and the result is that smaller institutions will be competing with one another, while losing students to community colleges, state flagships, and an array of for-profits promising better job prospects for graduates. The only thing that might allow small colleges and universities to avoid a closure is a merger, and Moody’s predicts we will see many more of them.

Deep Deep Trouble

That’s how Rich DiMillo describes the higher education outlook for any college or university that, like LaSalle, is heavily tuition dependent. Author of a new book, Revolution in Higher Education, DiMillo’s forecast is even more dire than Moody’s. He thinks as many as 20 to 25 percent of America’s non-elite, non-selective institutions will face severe financial trouble. That may mean closures. More likely it could lead, as Moody’s agrees, to a vast increase in mergers between small colleges and universities in similar regions. Either way, anything short of total shutdowns will result in layoffs at worst or significant budget cuts at best. Two or three institutions that decide to merge are unlikely to see the need to support multiple libraries. Forward-looking institutions are exploring options and experimenting with new ways to reach untapped audiences beyond the traditional college student. Lynn University announced a new partnership with General Assembly to offer students access to coding and other career-oriented boot camp experiences. That news further convinced me that traditional higher education is beginning to look more like alt–higher ed, where students will move between many different options, from MOOC to community college to research university, picking up credits and credentials along the way. The U.S. Department of Education’s plan to allow financial aid eligibility for new types of partnerships between traditional colleges and non-institutional providers such as bootcamps will likely promote more alt–higher ed paths to diplomas. Before long, nothing in higher education, not even the sacred credit hour, may be immune to change.

Facing the Facts

Believe me, it’s not my preference to go all doom and gloom about higher education. My own institution had a wake-up call a few years back when the state legislature passed drastic cuts to our budget allocation. Top administrators woke up to the reality that a more competitive stance and a much reduced dependence on public funding were in order. Facts are facts. There’s no way to look at the demographic data, student debt fears, parental concerns about careers and debt, cuts to public education, the growing popularity of bootcamp alternatives, experiments with partnerships and mergers, and other factors, and ignore what’s being predicted for small colleges and universities. Even larger research universities may find themselves subject to similar pressures that lead to closures, layoffs, and mergers. Are state supported institutions with 20,000 or more students too big to fail?

Looking for Blue Sky

While I certainly hope higher education institutions of all types will find ways to avoid layoffs and institutional closures, what’s happening at places like LaSalle, Drury, and others may be warning signs for the road ahead, especially if the landscape where that road leads stays much the same. These developments are beyond the control of academic librarians, but we are not without the means to contribute to student and faculty success while helping our institutions operate more competitively, keep tuition stable, or combat declining enrollment. Whether it’s promoting sane scholarly communication practices and pricing, advocating for open textbooks, or designing a library that connects with prospective students and parents, academic librarians should be considering what they can do to help their institutions stay competitive in order to keep enrollments strong. It’s great to open up the local paper and see there is strong interest in higher education—not because of what we are losing, but because of what we add to regional growth and the vitality of our communities. This article has been edited to clarify the percentage shortfall of LaSalle's entering enrollment.