As more get ready for college, enrollments stay flat

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

As more get ready for college, enrollments stay flat

One study shows little increase in student population

by Marcus Moore | Staff Writer

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School systems nationwide are tweaking their curriculums to make students more college-ready, but one study shows fewer are actually moving on to higher education in Maryland.

And in Montgomery, the state’s largest school system, 61 percent of seniors last year — or 4,223 students — said they would attend a four-year college or university after graduating from high school, according to the Maryland State Department of Education. Other students said they would either attend a specialized school, enter the workforce or the military.

There were 10,628 seniors in Montgomery last school year, of which 6,912 students filled out a statewide survey tracking what they will do once they graduate from high school, according to MSDE data.

A total of 976 students — or 14 percent of those responding to the survey — said they would attend a two-year college, the data show.

‘‘The proportion of the population going to college has been fairly flat for the last 10 years,” said Joni E. Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose, Calif. ‘‘It’s really the first time in the history of the country where high school graduates aren’t being prepared for higher education.”

Finney’s data isn’t meeting universal acceptance.

‘‘We see enrollment rising among all groups of students,” said Ross Wiener, vice president of program and policy at The Education Trust in Washington, DC.

More than 75 percent of high school graduates will go to some sort of postsecondary education, Wiener estimated. ‘‘That figure has been steadily rising among all groups of students,” he said.

And unlike Finney’s assertion, college enrollment tends to grow during tough economic times.

‘‘Students understand that a college degree is the only sure passport to the middle class and a living wage,” Wiener said.

Maryland earned an A-minus for its efforts in preparing students for college, according to the 2006 Measuring Up report on higher education.

Nineteen of the county’s 25 high schools reported results to the state. Clarksburg, Col. Zadok Magruder in Rockville, Northwood in Silver Spring, Sherwood in Sandy Spring and Bethesda’s Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson did not report any results, according to MSDE. The Thomas Edison High School of Technology in Silver Spring, which offers alternative postsecondary programs, also did not report results.

The struggling economy, caused by slumping housing sales and rising oil costs, has also taken its toll on college enrollment, as tuition increases across the country have outpaced inflation and income growth, Finney said.

The University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents is expected to vote on tuition today. Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and the General Assembly supplemented the system’s budget this year with an eye on preventing a tuition increase.

Making matters worse is the lack of federal aid for students, she said.

Within the University System of Maryland, for example, enrollment dropped 1.3 percent from 1,050,627 students in 2006 to 1,036,523 students in 2007. Enrollment has dropped almost 2 percent the last five years, according to USM.