In this final report concerning declining enrollments in Ontario, the problems are defined almost entirely in economic and financial terms, and the solutions expressed in those terms. The first section of the report briefly reviews the essential background, the economic and financial constraints, and finally the demographic facts. The arguments…

Deans from 53 colleges of arts, science, and humanities at major U.S. universities provided data about the structure of their colleges. These colleges were studied because structural changes are occurring and baseline data is needed. Forty-two percent of the deans reported that a formal study of reorganization of their colleges had taken place in…

Data are presented concerning the enrollments of Black and Chicano graduate and undergraduate students at the University of California at Berkeley. Some problems, particularly those stemming from academic decision-making at the undergraduate level, are noted. A number of problematic academic decisions that are (were) likely to affect negatively…

The Evergreen State College, Washington's newest four-year college, was established in the midst of an unprecedented enrollment expansion. It also responded to contemporary calls for reform in higher education. Two conditions, the recent lack of growth in higher education and a subsiding of enthusiasm for nontraditional higher education, have…

The decline in the quality of American higher education over the past several decades and the ramifications of this phenomena are discussed in this book. It is suggested that in responding to modern egalitarianism and the need to attract students, colleges and universities have initiated innovative programs, noncampuses, and nontraditional degrees…

Recommendations for the future of postsecondary education at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota, and for postsecondary education in the entire southwestern region of the state are presented. The year-long study examined the problem of declining enrollment at Southwest State as well as its implications for the entire region. The…

Declines in student population are a fact of life in most of the nation's school districts. With the declines come unprecedented challenges and opportunities; sensitive community relations problems involved with school closings; costs that continue to rise despite the decline in student numbers; the need for staff reductions; the need for…

A study of basic Title VII programs examines salient program features, including grade levels served, enrollment characteristics, staff experience, and technological features of bilingual programs. A typical Title VII (Spanish-English) bilingual program is summarized. Data reveal that English is used more often than Spanish in most bilingual…

A study was conducted at Schoolcraft College, in Michigan, to determine possible reasons for a drop in enrollment between fall 1994 and winter 1995. Of the 3,063 students who were enrolled in fall 1994 but did not return for winter 1995, 100 were surveyed by telephone to determine reasons for not returning, while demographic data were obtained…

Faced with a one-fourth drop in the number of high school graduates between 1979 and 1995, many colleges and universities are responding by making themselves more attractive to students and their parents, instituting procedures to recruit students more effectively and providing a more satisfactory 4 years for the undergraduate experience using an…

An innovative, flexible scheduling technique for advanced levels of a foreign language program is described. The technique, predicated on individualized pacing and continuous progress, is generalizable to all elective programs, and offers a workable solution to satisfy the enrollment "numbers game" and to lend breadth and depth to the curricula of…

Prospects for Illinois public school revenues and school district reorganization in the 1980's, considered in the context of prospects for the Great Lakes region as a whole, are affected by fundamental demographic and economic changes. The region has had a lower population growth rate since 1970 than the rest of the country, and a slower growth in…

The suspension of Pennsylvania's educational employees due to declining enrollment is examined in this paper. The controversy over whether teacher suspension should be based on seniority or on evaluation criteria has resulted in intervention by the judicial system to establish legal precedents for reduction-in-force policy. Methodology is based on…

Florida's community college system is uniquely positioned to work toward the fulfillment of the goal of equitable representation of black students in the state's system of higher education. At present, efforts are falling far short of that goal. While blacks represented 18.7% of the 15-24 year olds in the state in 1988, they earned only 4.8% of…

Organizational theory offers rural school administrators several ways of thinking about retrenchment made necessary by declining enrollment. Obstacles to innovative responses to retrenchment include a shift in how organizations are perceived: from closed systems in which rational decisions are made about changes, to open systems in which…