EMU is Falling Off An Enrollment Cliff: Officials Say They’ve Been “Planning for the Transformation”

by P.D. Lesko

Eastern Michigan University is the largest single employer in Ypsilanti. The 800 acre university campus anchors the city’s downtown, but provides no payments in lieu of the property taxes the non-profit doesn’t pay (PILOT payments). In March 2025, the newspaper contacted EMU President James Smith’s Chief of Staff (and former Ann Arbor City Council member) Leigh Greden to ask about the steady drop in enrollment and how President Smith is working to staunch the institution’s year-over-year bleeding of both undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduate enrollment at EMU had declined from 18,434 in the Fall of 2011 to just 10,034 in the Fall of 2025. Walter Kraft, EMU’s Vice President for Communications, responded to some of the newspaper’s questions.

To explain a decline in EMU’s student enrollment that is twice the national average, Walter Kraft said in an email, “Over the last several years, the number of high school graduates in Michigan has declined by more than 14 percent and the percentage of recent high school graduates attending college after graduation has declined by 18 percent.”

Statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) show that between 2017-2025, the number of students graduating from Michigan high schools fell from 101,490 to 94,900, a 7 percent drop. In 2016, 64.7 percent of Michigan’s high school graduates went to college. In 2024, that percentage dropped to 53.4 percent, a decline of 11.3 percent.

Overall, in the United States there is projected to be a modest 5 percent increase in the number of students graduating from high school in 2026-2027 for a total of 3,327,700, graduates, up from 3,149,185 in 2011-2012.

According to the NCES, in 2025-2026 91,460 students are expected to graduate from high schools in Michigan. In 2026-2027, the number of high school graduates in the state is predicted to fall to 88,050. This is down from a high of 124,732 high school graduates in 1980. Like Michigan, 19 other states have seen a decline in the number of high school graduates. The South and West, on the other hand, have seen increases of 15.1 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively, in the number of high school students graduating.

At EMU, Just 9.7 Percent of Students Accepted Enroll

Eastern Michigan University has an acceptance rate of 79.6 percent. In 2024, 21,337 people applied and 16,992 were accepted, but only 9.7 percent of those accepted enrolled. In comparison, in 2024 Grand Valley State University accepted 23,008 of the people who applied and 21 percent of the students accepted enrolled. Research suggests EMU’s low enrollment rate may have to do with student perceptions of poor return on investment.

A 2022 survey funded and published by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation suggests Kraft’s explanations of why EMU’s enrollment has fallen are not supported by the reasons prospective college students provided in a national survey titled “Exploring the Exodus from Higher Education.” From the survey: “This audience makes its decisions about education based on value, investment, and opportunity cost. Yes, affordability matters, but return on investment matters more—to these young adults it is not merely about overcoming a financial barrier.”

Recruitment competition for high school graduates in Michigan is tough and expensive. From the Gates Foundation survey: “The reticence about higher education is not limited to a specific demographic.” In other words, college is becoming a harder sell to every 18-30 year-old whom universities like EMU hope to recruit.

In 2025, Michigan’s 15 four-year colleges and universities enrolled 259,000 students total (200,000 undergraduate and 59,000 graduate students). This is down from 294,000 total students enrolled in 2016.

Of the 259,000 students enrolled in Michigan’s 15 four-year colleges and universities, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University enrolled 86,000 of those students in their undergraduate and graduate programs. Unlike EMU, the University of Michigan had the funds and staff to send recruitment mailers out to some multiple of its prospective 105,000 applicants in 2024. Of those applicants, 15.4 percent were accepted (15,373 students, including freshmen and transfers). Of those 15,373 students accepted, 47.5 percent enrolled.

Recruitment is akin to an arms race. Public universities like EMU spend, on average, $494 per student recruit. Private institutions spend, on average, $2,795.

The University of Michigan does not make public the amount it expends on student recruitment. In 2020, the University of Michigan’s Office of Public Affairs announced $20 million had been set aside for recruitment and student retention on the university’s Flint and Dearborn campuses. NCES data between 2020 and 2025 show undergraduate enrollment on the Dearborn campus fell 10 percent. Undergraduate enrollment on the Flint campus increased 1.5 percent.

EMU Points to the “Defunding of Higher Education”

To explain EMU’s falling enrollment, Walter Kraft also pointed to the fact that “Michigan ranks 41st among the states in funding for public universities and EMU receives nearly $2 million less per year from the State than it received 21 years ago — even before accounting for the impact of inflation. The federal government has not invested in Pell Grants (EMU has the third largest percentage of Pell Grant students among Michigan’s public universities.)” In other words, Kraft suggests EMU’s enrollment has fallen because state and federal funding have either remained stagnant or decreased. Again, Kraft’s numbers don’t add up.

• Twenty-one years ago, EMU received $78.8 million in state appropriations. According to the 2025 EMU Budget Book, since fiscal year 2016 state appropriations to EMU rose from $71.8 million to $86.3 million, even as the university’s enrollment plummeted by thousands of students.

• Between 2020 and 2024, Pell Grant appropriations (Pell Grants serve low-income students) remained steady at $29 billion per year, while the number of low-income undergraduate students in the U.S. remained steady at around 6 million. [Pell Grants may be obtained for six years of study.]

In 2012, total financial aid distributed by EMU out of its $292 million in income was $35.7 million. In the $317 million 2024 budget, total financial aid was $63.1 million. Yet, even by offering 90 percent of first year students (and 68 percent of all students) financial assistance, EMU’s enrollment is still falling. Applicants accepted to Eastern Michigan University are, literally, turning down free money and enrolling elsewhere.

One question that Walter Kraft did not answer was whether EMU’s low completion (graduation) rate is adversely impacting its enrollment rates. “What are you thoughts on the correlation between 4-year grad rates and enrollment? Do you think students today are more conscious of those two data points?”

Kraft replied: “EMU is also deeply involved in the southeast Michigan community. EMU’s Bright Futures program provides (thanks to federal funding) after-school support to K-12 students at dozens of schools. WEMU, our public radio station, is repeatedly named public radio station of the year. In recognition of our community engagement, EMU is designated an Engaged University by the Carnegie Foundation.”

EMU’s graduation rates are among the lowest in the United States. Of students who enroll at EMU, four years later only one-quarter of them will graduate. This places EMU in the bottom 20 percent of U.S. colleges for 4-year graduation. EMU, like most colleges, touts a six-year graduation rate (48 percent) to counter abysmal four-year graduation rates. However, even the 48 percent graduation rate places EMU in the bottom 35 percent of U.S. colleges for 6-year graduation rates.

EMU’s Answer to Falling Enrollment? Invest In Financial Aid and Spend $200M on New Housing

Walter Kraft said in his email: “EMU began planning several years ago for this transformation by investing in high quality academic programs sought by students and employers, redesigning our workforce without mass layoffs, increasing our financial aid to make up for the lack of support from the federal and state governments, and reducing our square footage while investing in new facilities to meet students’ needs. For example, EMU launched new engineering and cybersecurity programs, we invested $200 million in new student housing, and we invested in student success. These actions are intentional and effective.”

If one measures “effective” by enrollment numbers, Kraft’s claims the “intentional” actions are “effective” are little more than transparent PR spin. Likewise, if one measures “effective” by the college’s four- and six-year graduation rates, Kraft’s claim is equally questionable. In 2012, the university’s 4-year graduation rate was 29 percent, well below the national average then and, at 25 percent in 2024, still in the bottom 20 percent of U.S. colleges for 4-year graduation.

While the Gates Foundation survey confirms cost of college is a factor in whether students enroll, a surprising 62 percent of those surveyed agreed that they “would be willing to take on college debt if guaranteed a good job after graduation. They want to be assured of the results that would make college worth their time and money.”

While EMU “invested” $200 million in new student housing, almost half of the students surveyed by the Gates Foundation said they are most concerned with getting a return on their investment. “Forty-five percent agreed with the statement: ‘Getting a college degree is not worth the investment, because I cannot afford to go into debt when I am not guaranteed a future career path.‘ Note how this statement indicates the lack of an assured ROI.”

“Effective Transformation” or Fiddling While EMU Burns?

Walter Kraft says EMU President Dr. James Smith, hired in 2016, has overseen an “intentional” transformation of the university. It’s hard to believe a leader of any university would intentionally engineer the loss of thousands of undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduate enrollment at EMU in the Fall of 2016 was 17,541 and declined to 10,034 in the Fall of 2025. Under Dr. Smith’s “intentional” transformation, since 2016 EMU has lost over 42 percent of its undergraduate enrollment and over 30 percent of its graduate student enrollment.

Even as EMU’s income from tuition and fees has increased from $214 million in 2017 to $225.1 million in 2025, the increase has come from fewer and fewer students in the form of fees and tuition hikes and from federal Pell Grants. Meanwhile, at EMU the return on a student’s investment (earning an undergraduate degree in four years), has diminished. Seventy-five percent of students at EMU don’t graduate in four years.

Among Smith’s accomplishments on his university bio. page are “established the position of Chief Diversity Officer reporting directly to the President”; “introduced the President’s Sustainability Commission.”

To combat falling enrollment Dr. Smith is “providing opportunities for new populations to pursue their college dreams at EMU. During his presidency, he was a leading proponent of the #YouAreWelcomeHere campaign, encouraging international students to study in the United States, and executed an innovative enrollment partnership with Beibu Gulf University in China.”

Again, the numbers paint a less rosy picture.

According to data from EMU, in 2017 EMU had 517 foreign students enrolled. After eight years of Dr. James Smith’s #YouAreWelcomeHere campaign, six percent of EMU’s students (632) were international. EMU is also being pressured by federal officials to close down some international partnerships in China because of national security concerns: https://m.facebook.com/groups/178850790201740/permalink/1331694381584036/ . This may cause a further drop in foreign student enrollment.

Walter Kraft ended his email on an upbeat note: “The landscape for higher education has become even more uncertain in recent weeks, and public regional universities will continue to face challenges, but EMU will not waver from its commitment to provide a high quality student-central education to prepare our graduates for excellent jobs.”

In 2003, when EMU had 2,200 total faculty and staff, enrolled 14,545 students and received $78 million in state appropriations, one year of tuition and fees cost $5,218. In 2025 EMU’s 10,034 undergraduate students pay tuition and fees totalling $16,598, and the university employs 508 full-time faculty, 490 adjunct faculty, and 1,860 non-faculty administrative staff (2,858 employees).

Paul Weinstein, Jr. worked on public policy, including education public policy, for eight years in the Clinton White House. Weinstein said in an article about the “enrollment cliff” over which EMU appears to have plunged: “Basic economics tells us that when demand goes down, suppliers must reduce costs, cut supply, or lower prices to survive. Between 2025 to 2029, undergraduate headcount will drop by over 575,000 students (15 percent) and, if recent history is an indicator, many schools will end up closing their doors rather than streamlining their operations.”

Walter Kraft says Dr. James Smith redesigned the EMU workforce “without mass layoffs.” Paul Weinstein, Jr. would say that mass layoffs and fresh leadership might be just what the doctor should order to keep Eastern Michigan University from closing its doors.