By SUSAN JONES
Chancellor Patrick Gallagher’s excitement over a record number of applications for first-year students this fall at Pitt’s Oakland campus, was tempered at the June 23 Board of Trustees meeting with the reality of falling numbers at the regional campuses.
The number of applicants to the Pittsburgh campus is up 9 percent from 2022 to 58,265, breaking the record that was set last year. “Demand to attend this campus has never been higher,” Gallagher said.
Looking at students who have already put down deposits to attend Pitt this fall, the chancellor said the applications were from 46 states and Guam and 35 countries outside the U.S. Other statistics:
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53.4 percent are from Pennsylvania students; 16 percent from rural parts of the state.
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7.3 percent are international students.
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39.2 percent are minorities.
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15.4 percent are Pell-eligible.
“Academic measures in this group are remarkable,” he said. “The average weighted GPA is over 4.0 (4.13) and test scores for those taking the test remain extraordinarily high. This again will be one of the most diverse and accomplished incoming classes in Pitt’s history.”
Gallagher said rural Pennsylvania students are a priority demographic for Pitt. “We’ve had increasing success attracting these kinds of students to Pitt, and we are committed to doing more.” He pointed to a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education focusing on Daryl Burleigh, a rural recruiter for Pitt who logs 10,000 miles a year to reach far-flung students and their families.
While the demand for the Oakland campus remains at an all-time high, the four regional campuses — Johnstown, Greensburg, Bradford and the Hub at Titusville — continue to have enrollment challenges. In the past decade, the student population at the regionals has declined 30 percent.
Gallagher said that decreasing demand for smaller, less selective colleges is a national and regional trend.
“This is not happening because we’re failing to prioritize the regional campuses or to recruit in rural Pennsylvania,” he said. “I just want to remind everyone that the board has endorsed and approved a whole host of efforts that are designed to make these campuses more attractive, with new buildings and new degree programs that align with the needs of the region.”
He compared the decline in enrollment at Pitt’s regional campuses to that at community colleges in Pennsylvania, at Penn State’s commonwealth campuses and at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education schools.
“The same trends that we are seeing on our regional campuses are also evident in these other systems, again before, during and after the pandemic, and these trends are persistent today.” Gallagher said. “This is consistent with data that we look at across the country.”
The question, Gallagher said, is are these declines cyclical or systemic? He noted that this decline is not part of the demographic cliff that is expected to hit when the number of graduating high school students drops in 2026, an aftereffect of the 2008 recession.
“It’s my view that these are more systemic in nature than cyclical, and it raises a whole host of questions that we need a more detailed understanding of,” he said. “Are these students going somewhere else? Are they simply not choosing to pursue a university degree? What are the largest impediments facing them to college education? And what are the deciding factors that they are looking at as they make these decisions on school versus employment, trade school, military service? The answers to these questions have massive implications for the country, but also for states as we look at our policies around how to support higher education for our citizens and prepare them to work and live in the economies of the future.”
Schools in Pennsylvania may be more susceptible to disruption, Gallagher said, because the funding system from the state can vary year to year. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who took office in January, has called for a new blueprint of how the commonwealth will support higher education. That discussion is ramping up and is being led by Kate Shaw, deputy secretary and commissioner for postsecondary and higher education, who was at the Board of Trustees meeting.
“This is an enormous opportunity to instead of simply reacting to these trends — getting into a mode where we’re just bailing out failing institutions — to really look at this systematically, treat this as an opportunity and to reposition the commonwealth to serve its citizens and grow its economy,” Gallagher said.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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