Joseph F. Kauffman, W. Todd Furniss, and Jay L. Chronister review two recently published works that focus on important trends threatening the survival of colleges over the next decade. Fiscal, enrollment, reduction, reallocation, and retrenchment problems are discussed. (SF)

The educational innovations at the University of California at Santa Cruz are being eliminated and the school is facing an enrollment crisis. The problems are discussed, although no solutions are presented. (SA)

An abstract of a study to discover the political interaction leading to policy decisions for the management of underutilized school facilities, to determine the actual policies that resulted from those activities, and to investigate the satisfaction level of participants. (Author/MLF)

Part 2 of a two-part article describes how managing decline can be seen as an opportunity to improve school buildings that will result in a more economical education system. (MLF)

Declining enrollments are leaving many districts with space they no longer need. The conversion of surplus school buildings to new uses can often provide communities with new vitality. Examples show unused schools converted for use as apartments, shops, and office space for public agencies. (Author/MLF)

Discusses a number of educational issues, including federal action and programs, education's goals, the decline in enrollment, citizen participation, standardized tests, and continuous learning, as they are seen by people from the educational and political communities. (IRT)

After a systematic national search, 86 special education doctoral programs were found to be active in 1999. Program administrators were surveyed and results indicate most special education doctoral programs are under enrolled, doctoral students' enrollment has declined 30% over the last 20 years, and programs are not highly selective. (Contains…

The history of foreign languages in the elementary school (FLES) in the United States reveals six reasons, not commonly acknowledged, for declining enrollment in the 1950s and 1960s. A checklist for self-evaluation of new and existing programs based on those reasons is presented. (53 references) (Author/MSE)

In Britain, as in America, major birth rate fluctuations have increased the complexity of providing schooling. Declining birth rates and migration limitations since the 1960s have forced widespread school closures. This paper examines the financial aspects of school closure history and projects the future situation under the newly decentralized…

A study to determine the relationship between organizational decline and three domains of effectiveness (academic, morale, and external adaptation) in private colleges and universities is discussed. The results demonstrate that the relationship between decline and effectiveness is not uniform across three types of institutions. (Author/MLW)

"New Pressures on Vocational Education" (Mansnerus) describes new forms (tech prep, career academies, apprenticeship, school enterprises); "Biotechnology Goes to High School" (Quinn) describes Berkeley High's Biotech Academy created by industry; and "Votech That Works" (Holusha) stresses the importance of specialized training for non-college-bound…

Defining the college or university in terms of a shared vision of what distinguishes it from others can help unite constituencies and build a more effective student recruitment campaign. During declining enrollments, such unity of purpose can be crucial to institutional survival. (Author/MSE)

In this article, the author features the Gesu School, a small, inner-city, K-8 Catholic school in Philadelphia. She describes how it has transformed itself since 1993 from a school barely eking out an existence to one with a $5 million--and growing--endowment fund and a powerful, ecumenical board of business executives and other lay people. The…

Located 25 miles south of Chicago in South Holland, Illinois, South Suburban College (SSC) is one of Illinois's larger community colleges--and one of its more financially challenged. Because tuition dollars and the state reimbursement generated by student enrollment are key to a college's solvency, a slow, steady decline in enrollment was cause…

For a century Catholic schools have formed the basis for a strong system of acculturation into Catholic identity and values. Catholic schools provided a low-cost basic education and served as a common school for all social classes of Catholics. This system has weakened considerably in the last decades. Between 1970 and 2000 there was a net loss of…