Ohio University president addresses enrollment, diversity, and more at media roundtable
President Hugh Sherman of Ohio University addressed the current state of Ohio University, as well as future plans, in a media roundtable.
On September 16, President Hugh Sherman of Ohio University met with members of the local media for a roundtable discussion in the Baker Center. Among the topics discussed by the president were enrollment, diversity, and tuition affordability.
The most recent incoming class is the largest that the school has ever seen with over 4,000 students joining the school. Yet between 2020 and 2022, more than a million fewer students entered the university system.
Sherman was quoted by Athens News on those changes, saying, So that’s about a 7% decline in the entire U.S. marketplace. So given what our growth has been in the last two years, that it’s really kind of spectacular, right? We’ve increased our enrollments actually 50% from 2020 to 2022.”
He then went on to talk about the future of enrollment while keeping an eye on the past. “The target is to be approximately 4,000 freshman students each year. So clearly we exceeded it this year, but the last two years, we were down. Last year before was 3,600,” he said.
President Sherman went on to say that because of this enrollment, as well as other factors, the University is in good shape financially. Because of this, the saff can focus on improving the experiences of students who are already enrolled at Ohio University. So far it has invested in academic advising, mental health services, and supplemental tutoring.
These improvements, in Sherman’s view, are especially important these days: “One of the things that we recognize, and again this is a national problem, is that the freshmen students who are coming into the university are less prepared because they’ve had these last two years of interrupted learning and distance learning. Nationally, this is a big problem. So we’ve had to kind of double down. We’re offering more academic advising. We’re offering more supplemental instruction to help students be able to get through classes, be successful and graduate on time.”
Sherman is also embarking on a “major renovation plan” of the University’s residential housing. According to Sherman, “We have about 7,500 rooms on campus. We’re embarking on a major effort to rehab those rooms and likely we will over the next five or six years, replace a couple of the dorms that are down on the South Green.” He noted that the project was “not to build extra capacity,” but rather “to upgrade the rooms that we do have.”
Back on the subject of enrollment, President Sherman talked about shifting from bringing in higher numbers of students every year to sustaining the numbers the school is already admitting: “Right now, the number of high school graduates who are going to universities is smaller each year in the state of Ohio, as well as it is nationally. So it doesn’t make sense to continue to grow in a shrinking market. What the objective is to use that 4,000 as the number that we want to stabilize at, and really enhance the experience that those 4,000 students have. I think with the investments we’re making, we can really differentiate even more the experience of a student who comes to Ohio University.”
Therefore, the school is pivoting to focusing on not only retaining students, but getting them to graduate on time, as well. Sherman spoke about the numbers the school is making, and what his goals are moving forward, saying, “Right now we’re at about a 81% retention rate. I think we can get up to 85%. So we want to retain the students that we have by really providing the support services to help them to be successful. Then secondly, our numbers have been improving these last couple years of four-and six-year graduation rates. If we focus on those 4,000, we can even get those numbers even better. So that we get more and more students graduating in four years.”
Part of the plan to maintain enrollment numbers is to continue making Ohio University a place students want to enroll. Part of this effort is to work on getting prospective students and their parents on campus for tours. Sherman said, “We always really benefit when students come to campus to visit. We’re one of the most beautiful campuses in the country. One of the top 10. “If we don’t get students to campus, that hurts us. ... When students get the chance to come to campus and talk to other students, talk to faculty members, they get excited, they can see that it’s a unique experience.”
Along with bringing people in to see the school, Ohio University is also reaching out: “We have hired more enrollment specialists who are located throughout the state and out of state, so that they’re making calls. They’re attending the high school job fairs. They’re inviting students and parents to come here.”
The issue of rising education prices also came up. As national college enrollment drops, tuition discounts are becoming more common. Ohio University offers many scholarships funded by alumni donations as well as other methods of making school more affordable.
Sherman offered his take on the issue: “This is an issue that’s happening across higher education. In the last 10 years, let’s say, if you think about the financials —scholarships and discounts that are being given by institutions — at private schools, it’s actually double. There are some numbers that are printed in the journals about how much discounting is being done. In many of the private schools, it’s like 60%, which I don’t think is viable for public schools.”
While private schools can offer more discounts, Ohio University offsets costs in other ways. “We discount a lot less, because the tuition is a lot less. But that (discount) number has grown. We’ve probably, over the 10 years, public schools have probably increased that discount by probably 25%, 30%. But we’re in much better shape than the private schools are. The smaller private schools don’t have the established reputations,” said Sherman.
Sherman went on to talk about the difference between OU and other schools.“You’re investing four years and you’re investing considerable amounts of dollars to invest in a college education. What the trend so far, these last three years has been a bifurcation of the schools that students were making choices about.”
Bringing up the specific example of Maryland in comparison to Ohio, Sherman said, “You’ve got the University of Maryland. And then you’ve got the University of Baltimore and you’ve got a couple private schools. If you look at the enrollments in just in the State of Maryland to see how it’s changing over the last three years, so it’s going to the schools that have big reputations. So it’s going to a school like University of Maryland and away from Towson University, Baltimore, and some of the liberal arts schools that don’t have a reputation. We’re seeing the same kind of trend in Ohio.”
Sherman then went on to compare Ohio University to other Ohio schools, saying, “Then you’ll see other schools that have really struggled these last couple years. Some of the publics too that are still declining. There’s more reason to make sure that you’re adding value to the student experience, so that they understand why you come to Ohio and not go to University of Baltimore. I see that bifurcation. I think for those schools that are struggling and they have a high discount rate, they’re in more financial trouble and right now. We’re not. We are sitting with a very strong balance sheet.”
The topic of discussion then pivoted to how Ohio University is realigning its resources. With the increasing number of students, it has become important for the school to keep an eye on where the demands and stresses are being placed on its budget. Sherman talked about the University colleges all working on their three year plans: “Each of those colleges will come forth with their plans, and they have to show that there is enough students in their department to justify hiring a full-time tenure track person to teach the upper level classes. In the college of business. They were close to their second largest number of freshmen. They’re going be impacted in a year, two years, down the road. When they start getting into the majors classes, they will need tenure-track accounting, finance and marketing faculty members. So they’re writing out that plan of what they’re going to do.”
Sherman was asked if there were any plans to cut programs at the school, to which he responded, “We haven’t talked about that. I think that universities should always look for that. There are some things that I think we can do over time though. If you have a major and you’ve got five electives, it’s more thinking about can you justify those five electives. Maybe there’s only three electives and you work with another major and they also have those electives, so that you can get a sustainable number of students in those classes. It’s more at that kind of fine-tuning. It’s not really eliminating majors.”
Sherman also addressed the issues of diversity on campus. Despite efforts to encourage a wider range of demographics on campus over the past few years, the student makeup has largely remained unchanged in the past three years. Sherman also mentioned that during the pandemic, students of color were the first group of students who were forced to drop out of school, or who stopped attending.
“Last year and this year, we saw some improvement in those numbers, but we really haven’t made progress is what I’d say,” Sherman said. He mentioned that diversity was “high on [his] agenda.”
Ohio University is looking to hire a consultant who will look at its policies, procedures, practices, and programs to help OU attract a more diverse range of students.
Sherman explained the process the consultant will use, saying, “They will do an audit, and at the same time, we’ll be working with them as they go through to develop a roadmap for where we can prioritize our efforts for the future. The other thing that we did this year is the Make Respect Visible campaign that was developed three years ago. Because of COVID, it didn’t really get launched, so that we launched in a big way this summer and this fall. That includes training of first-year students, resident assistants, staff, faculty and university leadership. A lot of that happened this summer.”
He also talked about the strategy of conducting several hires at once: “One of the best practices is you hire several people of color at the same time in an area so that they provide support for each other. It is easier to retain them. It’s easier to recruit them. So we’ve got different programs like that we will be launching.”
According to its website, Ohio University is the oldest university in Ohio and enrolls nearly 30,000 students with campuses in Athens, Cleveland, and Dublin. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a wide variety of subjects. Students interested in attending can take a look at the school’s admissions page.