Changing student demographics at specialized colleges: implications for education and industry - lessons from leaders - Brief Article

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Christopher J. Cyphers

In the last decade specialized colleges have captured a growing segment of the higher education marketplace. This is due largely to the fact that their programs provide the kind of training much in demand by today's industry.

As the demographic composition of industry changes, so too does that of many specialized colleges. Women have made significant inroads into the once male-dominated worlds of business, advertising, design and high technology. Specialized colleges are beginning to see their undergraduate populations reflect these larger trends within industry.

The School of Visual Arts offers a perfect lens through which to view the push-pull dynamic of industry and specialized higher-education institutions and the challenge this dynamic poses to the mission and planning strategies of the schools that service the needs of industries in flux.

At SVA's founding in 1947, few women were part of New York's art and design community. Mirroring this trend, nary a single woman enrolled in SVA's first class.

Today, women occupy most of the college's recent incoming freshmen cohorts, and all indicators suggest that this will continue to be the case. Applications from women to the college's undergraduate programs have increased, in just five years, by 62 percent, and their rate of matriculation has increased by 23 percent. Meanwhile, the enrollment rate of men has dropped 16 percent.

Also, the social and economic characteristics of the art and design student have similarly changed. Historically, SVA enrolled a largely "local" population from a decidedly working-class background. Training in graphic design, animation and cartooning, for instance, was more vocational than it was professional. This has changed considerably--both as a function of shifting industry demands and as the result of changes in schools' missions.

As specialized colleges like SVA shift the focus of their mission from strictly training in a craft to education in a professional field, industry has come to expect skill sets that extend beyond the mastery of a particular concept or technique to a broader and more critical knowledge base.

These changes are, in one respect, welcomed. Our enrollments have grown each year ahead of projections. Incoming freshmen arrive better prepared to tackle the rigors of a college-level curriculum, and retention and persistence rates are well above the national average for four-year schools.

But, this good fortune has also created a variety of challenges. An increase in female enrollments, a growing out-of-state undergraduate population, and students desiring a total collegiate experience impel the college to reorder its priorities to meet new demands.

As specialized colleges and technology-based and business-oriented schools come to fill the growing need for a skilled and critically minded workforce, the demographic characteristics of these institutions are likely to mirror those of traditional colleges. Thus, we face issues such as student housing, expanded student support services and curriculum changes. Such issues affect mission, resource allocation, recruitment strategies and institutional planning. Campus leaders at these schools must study enrollment trends and pre-admission "characteristics and must listen carefully to what students deem important or necessary.

Sensitivity to and awareness of these trends will help specialized schools build on their prior successes, ensure profitable relationships with industry, and align their services with their changing student population.

Christopher J. Cyphers, Ph.D. Director of Institutional Research, School of Visual Arts New York, NY