Last summer, the National Education Association (NEA) developed a New Business Item to explore retrenchment: "The NEA shall make a statistical study on the effect of significant faculty retrenchment at community colleges on future faculty cuts" (NBI 78, 2022). ASA Research (ASA) conducted exploratory research in an attempt to identify…

The Advisory Committee's 2010 report, "The Rising Price of Inequality," found that need-based grant aid from all sources was inadequate by examining the enrollment and completion rates of low-income high school graduates who seek to earn a bachelor's degree and are qualified to gain admission to a 4-year college. The major finding was…

In this introductory article to a theme issue, the author discusses the impact of budget cuts, shrinking enrollment, the teacher's declining public image, and the fragmentation of the music industry and the music education field. On the positive side he describes two cases where community pressure prevented music program cuts. (SJL)

This speech reviews the literature on school closings in the context of declining economic support. Declining school enrollment, coupled with declining funds (fiscal retrenchment), makes school district reform necessary. A school district in Seattle, Washington took approximately a decade to resolve these problems. A district planning commission's…

Because they feel that music educators should be aware of general educational trends, the authors present an overview, with statistics, of two of education's most pressing problems: declining enrollments and higher costs. (JL)

Starting from a survey of research literature and court cases, researchers conducted a study of South Carolina school districts' policies and procedures concerning reductions in force (RIFs). The literature review indicated some of the conditions necessitating RIFs (such as state financial problems), methods of avoiding RIFs, and criteria for RIF…

While the elite private colleges may survive the enrollment declines of the 1980's and 1990's, the less elite, so-called invisible private colleges may have more difficulty. Finance, enrollment, and competition are the three major elements seen to threaten these institutions' futures. They face an uncertain financial future since historically they…

The first half of this paper reviews the school enrollment trend in the state of Wisconsin and discusses the implications of school closings. It offers planning suggestions to local districts in light of statewide declining enrollments. The second half of the paper--a review of recent literature related to "cutback management"--is…

In this paper a review of the Wisconsin declining enrollment trend is presented and implications are noted for Wisconsin districts involved in school closing efforts. The author suggests that districts can best meet the challenge of declining enrollment by considering local enrollment projections, taking a facilities and program inventory,…

Planning issues for colleges seeking to maintain quality in institutional programs in the face of retrenchment are analyzed, based on a literature review. An extensive bibliography on the following topics is provided: quality (ratings, rankings, reform, institutional goals, and educational outcomes); retrenchment (enrollment decline, faculty,…

Historical developments and current trends affecting American higher education are discussed, along with government and college reactions to problems. A review of the literature covers: retrenchment, the federal role in the past, the role of the states, the private sector, population declines, inflation and unemployment, a loss of confidence in…

Changes that higher education is experiencing and forecasting and approaches to improve higher education management are considered. In addition to declining enrollment, rising costs, and diminishing financial resources, colleges are faced with the task of managing these changes under the pressures of new constraints and new constituencies.…

Some of the responses of colleges and universities to declining enrollments and diminishing resources are reviewed. Institutions have tried to reduce the size of their operations, reallocate resources internally, and retrench a number of faculty and programs. Several approaches to reductions, reallocations, and retrenchments in specific cases,…

This review of the literature focuses on the effects of enrollment and fiscal decline on local school district management and also looks at the effects of local districts' policy responses to decline. The review's five sections include an overview of the kinds of literature available on decline; a summary of the main policy issues identified in…

Theory and research on the effectiveness of college operations are covered in 12 chapters. Current research on each topic is reviewed, with attention to conceptual and methodological issues, and an agenda for future research is offered. Chapter titles and authors are as follows: "Transformational Leadership in Colleges and Universities" (Kim S.…