Thank you, Danielle Buehrer, Indiana University‘s associate vice president for enterprise effectiveness, for recommending Start, Stop, Grow by Robert Gray Atkins. A great primer on assessing the potential for new academic programs. Here’s one nugget that deserves closer attention:

“Many local colleges believe that demographic declines in high school graduates are eroding their enrollment. Demographics tell only part of the story. Western Governors had 83,000 students in 2015. They grew by almost 20,000 students in 2016 and another 20,000 in 2017. In 2018, they saw an increase of 25,000, and another 30,000 in 2019. In just four years, Western Governors’ online enrollments surged from 83,000 to 175,000. They’re adding more students annually than some entire public higher-education systems and most universities.”

Consider the time we’ve spent discussing the demographic cliff highlighted by Nathan Grawe‘s Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. While we’ve been concerned about the decline in high school graduates in 2025, Gray has pointed out that a more significant shift may already be happening. Let’s expand our focus to include the impact of large online providers on enrollments, not only in online programs but across the board.

Looking at NC-SARA data, the top 11 out-of-state providers enrolled nearly 10,000 students from Indiana (excluding WGU, which is considered an Indiana institution). Notably, 9 of these 11 providers were for-profit institutions.

Overall, approximately 22,000 Indiana students studied exclusively online at out-of-state institutions. Notably, 9 of these 11 providers were for-profit institutions. Since 2015, this number has grown by 10,000 students—a significant shift away from the in-state colleges and universities.

Many of these students likely don’t fit the traditional first-time, full-time student profile, potentially aligning with our local and regional campuses and community colleges. Moreover, these are the populations that many colleges were hoping to enroll to offset the impact of Grawe’s demographic cliff.

This is certainly something that IU Online will be digging into more as we launch and redesign programs in the near future, but the broader implications to other Indiana colleges and universities is significant. Not only will there be fewer high school grads in the mid-west, but we’re also seeing considerable competition from out-of-state providers (with very large national marketing budgets) for all the other students–and this has been happening for some time.

Oh, and P.S. Others have begun to look at this data as well as they research the landscape of higher education. It was great to see other colleagues like Kevin N. Shriner at University of Nebraska-Lincoln looking at NC-SARA data as well.

#HigherEdInsights #EnrollmentTrends #AcademicPrograms #OnlineEducation #StrategicPlanning #DemographicShifts #StudentRecruitment #EducationData #ForProfitColleges #IndianaStudents #EnrollmentCliff