CLEVELAND, Miss.–Delta State University is putting much of its energy into attracting non-traditional students, which DSU Pres. Dr. Dan Ennis says is a must for universities that want to survive the upcoming drop-off in enrollment of traditional students, known as the “enrollment cliff”.
Ennis made his remarks this week in front of a Senate Workforce Committee, which met at Delta State.
He noted that more than 300,000 Mississippians have started a Bachelor’s degree, but have not completed it, for whatever reason.
“Let’s say 160,000 of them want that Bachelor’s degree. What can we do to reopen the doors of public higher education to bring them back in?” he asked.
Ennis noted that the state’s workforce is short of workers and some of that is because workers lack the proper skills and credentials. He said bringing them back to school to get their degree can meet their needs and the needs of the universities.
“The enrollment cliff is scary if you think of higher ed as the place where we turn 18-year-old high school students into 22-year-old college graduates. But, that’s not how American higher education is going to work for the next two decades.”
He said state lawmakers can make a difference by helping with state aid.
“We’re gonna have to reinvest in the 40-year-old student, the 51-year-old student with kids,” he said. “Right now things like MTAG, they are designed for the traditional high school student. The fact that much of our state aid is keyed to full-time students, keeps us from serving these students.”
Ennis said Delta State’s enrollment is now at 2,785 students, with 8 in 10 of those being from Mississippi, with nearly 100 percent of people in programs like nursing coming from in-state.
