This article appeared as "What's the Outlook for Enrollment?" in the Fall 2022 issue of Independent School.
“What changes are here to stay when it comes to independent school admission?”
I explored this question a little more than a year ago when I wrote “Inside Outlook,” an article in the Summer 2021 issue of Independent School magazine about how the pandemic had reshaped the enrollment landscape and changed enrollment management practices. Informed by the wisdom of seven admission and enrollment leaders from the United States and Canada who are part of The Enrollment Management Association’s Admission Leadership Council, I shared six changes that we believed were here to stay as a result of the pandemic.
When I look at that list today with 2022 wisdom, I am ready to eat a big slice of humble pie. While most of the predictions are technically accurate, the nuances surrounding each have shifted. Living with ongoing uncertainty in an ecosystem that relies heavily on predictiveness has been especially challenging for enrollment strategy leaders who use predictive analytics to project enrollment numbers for everything from accepted student conversions, number of applicants, and the number of financial aid requests. Yet, the way the pandemic continues to evolve, and the ongoing instability in the independent school enrollment world, has made it difficult to read long-term trends and has made projections nearly impossible.
However, in acknowledgement of that—and in an attempt to digest that humble pie—I’m reflecting on those six predictions to provide a deeper analysis of enrollment issues and a more detailed look at key trends that have morphed in just the past 12 months.
The Current Landscape
Before revisiting the original list of predictions from 2021, it’s important to consider the latest national enrollment trends outlined in NAIS’s “The State of K–12 Enrollment 2021–2022” report.
- Public charter schools have been the only type of school to see enrollment growth through the pandemic. This connects with a decade-long growth pattern; the number of U.S. charter schools increased by more than 50% from the 2009–2010 school year to 2019–2020.
- K–12 school enrollment is predicted to plateau nationally through the 2020s, though significant changes are afoot with increasing student racial and ethnic diversity and regional student growth in the South and West.
- The typical independent school lost enrollment during the first full pandemic school year.
- Most independent schools recovered enrollment in year two of the pandemic (FY2021), and a majority of schools grew in the last 12 months.
- Small schools (less than 100 students), lower schools, and schools in Atlanta and Chicago experienced enrollment declines through the entire pandemic (2017–2018 to 2021–2022).
- Charter schools, fully online schools, and evangelical Christian schools all experienced modest to explosive growth during the pandemic years. More families also chose homeschooling.
- Traditional public and private school enrollments declined through the pandemic. The number of Catholic schools decreased by 9.4%, while other religious schools decreased by 11.7%, compared to a decrease of just 3.6% for nonsectarian schools and 3.2% for traditional public schools. (Of note: Independent schools—a small subset of the private school world—initially lost students in year one of the pandemic but rebounded in year two.)
- Between 2017–2018 and 2021–2022, NAIS small schools lost a median 7.7% of their enrollment; all other schools (larger than 100 students) posted gains or maintained enrollment.
- Total enrollment by grade level increased in 2021–2022 compared to 2018–2019, the last full school year before the pandemic. The lower grades showed particularly strong growth since the pandemic, with preschool enrollment rising nearly 11% and kindergarten and first grade increasing 5.1% and 6.8%, respectively. This pattern reverses a decade of decline in lower school enrollment.
- International student numbers declined during the pandemic and have not yet returned to 2019 levels.
With those enrollment findings and trends as background, let’s look at the original 2021 predictions and see what I got right and what went sideways.
Predictions Revisited
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
Independent school value is on the rise.
UPDATED PREDICTION
School choice is on the rise.
While there’s no disputing that most independent schools experienced positive enrollment upticks due to the pandemic, charter schools have remained the fastest growing school type in the K–12 landscape—before and throughout the pandemic. Many would describe charter schools as cousins to independent schools, with separate “charters” offering basic autonomy in exchange for public funding and accountability. While charter schools may be free from the rules governing public schools, they must produce results to retain their independence.
What Independent Schools Should Do:
At a time when school choice is gaining followers, school leaders and the school community should communicate the value of investing in tuition-charging independent schools. According to EMA’s “The Ride to Independent Schools 2021–2022” report, cost remains the main barrier for families seeking an independent school education—a concern schools must actively address to activate interest. It’s important to communicate the availability of financial support and to consider the language used to describe “financial aid,” in particular around tuition discounting, as some families find it off-putting.
It’s also critical to focus on your school’s unique value proposition and consistently communicate it. Families learned during the pandemic that many independent schools were open and operating—and delivering strong results despite the challenging environment for school operation. Early research now suggests that academic learning loss was less severe for private school students—facts that are compelling to families who remain concerned about the long-term impact of the pandemic on students. If your school has committed resources and programming to better manage student wellness and “character” skill development, be sure to say so.
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
Retention matters as much as new student admission.
UPDATED PREDICTION
None. Original is 100% accurate.
Student retention is, and should remain, a major focus for school leaders throughout the coming decade. According to Blackbaud’s 2021 K–12 Independent Schools Parent Survey, only 38% of parents said they were “extremely satisfied” with their investment in private schools. “Parents not only seek better academic experiences from independent schools, but they also want their investment to yield returns for their children,” says Travis Warren, president and general manager of K–12 solutions at Blackbaud. “School leaders should be uber focused on what that means post-pandemic, and administrators need to focus on post-pandemic student support, which will increase parent satisfaction levels.”
Student success is at the heart of enrollment management. “My job in leading our enrollment strategy isn’t just about building a new class but about retaining those students we admit,” says Jenna Rogers King, associate head of school at Riverdale Country School (NY). “As enrollment leaders, we must care about the long-term student success when making admission decisions.”
What Independent Schools Should Do:
Retention is a proxy for student/family satisfaction, and given the pandemic’s effects, school leaders should continue to invest time and energy in understanding satisfaction levels and on setting goals to create strong connections with families. Tracking student progress is paramount to ensure that administrators understand each student’s journey beyond a single year or grading period. If your school doesn’t have a “retention team,” now is the time to convene one. The work of this team—led by the head of enrollment and including all administrators involved in the student experience, including the CFO, head of school, division heads, and athletic department leaders—should focus on new student experiences as well as the progress of all students. Marketing and communications teams should be focused on addressing and communicating to families about how the school is creating a healthy community in support of academic progress and social wellness for students.
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
Adaptability has never been more critical in education.
UPDATED PREDICTION
Ritual and consistency are "in" post-pandemic—but with new wisdom.
Given the length of the pandemic and its ongoing psychological effects, there is a growing movement among many institutions for a return to what worked well before the global health crisis turned lives upside down.
“Humans crave rituals and routines especially during chaos that disrupts our established rituals,” explains Nathan Kuncel, psychology professor at the University of Minnesota. “Rituals can provide a sense of stability, facilitate social connectedness, and knit communities together. When we don’t have them, we can experience stress. Schools have many rituals and routines. Given the length of this pandemic, it’s fair to assume the need for consistency and ritual are even higher among key stakeholders in schools—teachers, administrators, students, and parents.”
While a “return to normal” isn’t fully possible, there are growing signs that school enrollment leaders are returning to what they know and embracing previous practices—but with a new understanding of the differences in test scores among student cohorts. “Many schools were quick to support families during the pandemic, but there have been unintended consequences from the shifts in standard practice that have not always ensured long term student success,” says Rogers King. “At Riverdale, we never abandoned our timelines or testing requirements, as we knew that student learning would be uneven during the pandemic.”
What Independent Schools Should Do:
The pandemic created a lot of uneven learning, and some students are still missing critical knowledge and skills as a result. Testing can help admission directors better understand these learning losses (in a diagnostic way), and after two years of admitting students without this information, many schools are returning to required testing. School leaders should reexamine and clarify the process, timelines, and requirements for making admission decisions. This includes taking a hard look at the school’s customs and rituals through the lens of whether they advance your school’s mission post-pandemic before deciding which ones to bring back. Admission officers should be looking carefully at all data points—from test scores to interview write-ups to teacher recommendations—to better understand applicants’ experiences, to ensure they’re making selections based on a variety of inputs, and to address increasing concerns about fairness around standardized testing.
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
Access and affordability remains a crirtical leadership issue.
UPDATED PREDICTION
None. Original is 100% accurate.
Access and affordability has been a critical issue for independent schools for well over two decades. And now, in our ever more polarized country, the issue has become even more challenging given the divisions in our society around such issues as race, human rights, and gender. Independent school leaders report immense challenges with managing political divisions among parents, and many leaders are having a tough time navigating how to manage the conversations about the affordability of independent school tuition without it devolving into a political stalemate. This has created internal angst and unwittingly put teachers and administrators in uncomfortable positions relative to their school’s mission and commitment to access and affordability.
What Independent Schools Should Do:
Now is not the time to back down on commitments to student success for all. School leaders should be charting plans to educate all key stakeholders, including parents, about the importance of inclusion and developing sound policies and ongoing training and dialogue to ensure the community fully understands the school’s work toward student success. Further, every independent school should examine its framework for financing an independent school education and determine goals to assure greater inclusion of students from different socioeconomic experiences.
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
The loss of international students is temporary.
UPDATED PREDICTION
The loss of international students is turning around, slowly.
Data suggests that in the fall of 2020, independent schools and colleges alike experienced a dramatic loss of international students. With many countries in lockdown during that period, international students weren’t able to travel to the United States and therefore withdrew their plans to attend U.S. institutions. Further, many international students didn’t want to come to the U.S. for safety fears, given the political strife and culture wars. This trend reversed itself for colleges during FY22 (barely), and although independent schools saw less international student decrease this past year, there has not been a return to pre-pandemic international numbers just yet.
What Independent Schools Should Do:
It’s time to get back to the work of global recruitment. Before the pandemic, administrators from boarding and day schools traveled the world to meet prospective students. With restrictions being lifted globally, admission officers need to plan for physical travel again to engage markets beyond our borders. School leaders should continue to pay close attention to international issues that affect student recruitment—the war in Ukraine, as well as cool political and trade relations with China and the Middle East, will affect student recruitment.
ORIGINAL PREDICTION
Online application tools designed with families in mind will stick.
UPDATED PREDICTION
Common online—and easy-to-use—tools are needed in a post-pandemic age.
While most schools moved to digital admission systems for their work during the pandemic (if not before), we remain as a community, bifurcated by regional and city-based admission systems that do not talk to each other. We continue to live within a byzantine world designed for our school operations, not for a student’s experience. The market data that an independent school common application system would provide could dramatically inform practice and presence of our schools. Independent schools should work together on this and build what is needed to improve the admission process.
“The need for families to engage in a thoughtful, age-appropriate process has not diminished due to the pandemic, but increased,” says Claire Goldsmith, ed tech consultant and former director of the Malone Schools Online Network. “In 2022, our community has access to technical tools to make the admission process better for families and students alike. I am watching experimentation in several ed-tech sectors that could revolutionize how families apply for financial aid and complete applications to our schools—and how schools collaborate to the benefit of families. I hope our professional community will embrace these new tools collectively to demonstrate an interest in the experience of students and families from inquiry to graduation.”
What’s Ahead
“Every year since 2020 has been a whole different experience in enrollment,” says Victoria Muradi, director of strategic initiatives, at Durham Academy (NC). “Each year has had unique issues to overcome. I imagine this could be true for several years ahead. We’re getting used to change management in schools, though we are also beginning to see what works and what doesn’t in the long term for student success.”
Although it’s difficult to make long-term projections, it seems safe to say that the future for independent school enrollment looks uneven. Private school enrollment reached its high in 2016 with 5.75 million and fell to 5.7 million students during the pandemic. The decade ahead will likely bring modest growth for some private school sectors. But if independent schools work together on solving challenges discussed here, our sector as a whole is more likely to see gains. However, such improvements are predicated on collaboration, not competition, among independent schools.