Higher Education

Declining interest in colleges hits OU

December 16, 2024

Ray Carter

A majority of this year’s freshman class at the University of Oklahoma did not graduate from any schools in Oklahoma’s K-12 system but instead came from other states around the country.

That continued an enrollment trend that has accelerated in recent years at OU, one that does not appear common at many universities in the region.

But OU officials have suggested the trend of rising dependence on out-of-state students is, in part, a byproduct of fewer Oklahoma high-school students wanting to attend college.

A November presentation to the OU Regents stated that first-time freshmen growth from 2015 to 2024 “has been driven by nonresident enrollment,” which the document stated had surged 64 percent during that time. During that decade, the number of nonresident OU freshmen increased by 1,107 students compared to an increase of only 286 Oklahoma students, according to the slide presentation.

But the presentation also informed the regents that even a modest increase in Oklahoma students over the past decade was “solid” given “declining College-Going rates in Oklahoma.” In 2015-2016, the document stated that 49 percent of Oklahoma high school graduates went on to college the following year. By 2022, just 36 percent of Oklahoma high school graduates pursued college.

In a statement for this article, OU officials noted the national trend is for lower overall college enrollment, saying, “While nationwide college enrollment has declined in recent years, OU has seen consistent growth, aligning with trends in the Sunbelt region, where cities and institutions combining economic opportunity and educational innovation are thriving. By providing a life-changing education at the lowest reasonable cost, especially for Oklahoma students with the talent and drive to succeed, OU continues to attract more students.”

The statement also said OU’s enrollment trends reflect an effort to meet Governor Kevin Stitt’s challenge to educate 40,000 students by 2030.

Interest in college is declining in states across the nation. Some critics believe those enrollment declines are linked to colleges imposing ideologically extreme viewpoints on students.

A recent analysis by The Chronicle of Higher Education found that between 2012 and 2022 white student enrollment dropped 22 percent across all higher education sectors. And a November 2023 Chronicle of Higher Education survey found only 31 percent of white respondents said colleges did an “excellent” or “very good” job educating students.

In December 2023, the Pew Research Center reported that the total number of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college had declined by approximately 1.2 million from 2011 to 2022, and that most of the decline was “due to fewer young men pursuing college” with a widening gender gap in college enrollment “most apparent among White high school graduates.”

In recent years, many schools have been embroiled in controversy over their perceived embrace of various left-wing causes, which critics argue have changed the cost-benefit analysis for many students and their families, causing high-school graduates to view the cost of a college education with growing skepticism.

Steven Hayward, writing for the Power Line blog, recently noted the trend of declining college enrollment among white males and said that “our elite institutions wonder why more and more Americans hold them in such low regard. I dunno, maybe it’s things like ‘Critical Whiteness Studies,’ which essentially tell all white males, ‘Drop dead.’”

Both OU and Oklahoma State University have been among the schools at the center of ideological controversies.

In 2021, OU students were required to take a mandatory diversity training program that informed students that “Boomer Sooner” was steeped in racism and could represent a form of oppression and that OU remained a place of discrimination where students may literally fear for their lives.

When state lawmakers voted that same year to prohibit colleges from requiring students to take any orientation “that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex,” OU President  Joseph Harroz declared that the legislation “runs contrary to the goals we have laid out for ourselves” at OU.

[For more stories about higher education in Oklahoma, visit AimHigherOK.com.]