Dive Brief:

• Even though Saint Michael's College has had steady enrollment figures and a budget surplus for six years, the Vermont school is planning to shrink over the next four years.
• The plan is an attempt to keep the college sustainable by foreseeing an environment where declining enrollments, cheap online classes, and student-loan debt issues will put pressure on small tuition-dependent liberal arts schools
• Saint Michael’s will enroll 10-15% fewer students over the next three to four years and cut its faculty and staff by about 10%, mostly through attrition.

Dive Insight:

As Inside Higher Ed points out, this strategy runs counter to prevailing wisdom, with other liberal arts colleges saying they’ll grow, even though the number of students seeking liberal arts degrees will probably decline. A task force of alumni, faculty, and trustees at St. Michael’s spent nine months studying projected problems, including a 15% drop in the number of Northeast high school graduates, the student-debt bubble, and price competition from online courses at elite universities. The college, which has 1,900 students, also plans to add a summer online program that could help students graduate in three years.