This is on point I'm Anthony Brooks in for a Magna Chakrabardi.

American colleges and universities are facing a so-called enrollment cliff, a precipitous

drop in college age applicants.

Consider the state of Illinois where the population of high school seniors peaked in 2015

and has been dropping ever since.

Nationwide, since the start of the pandemic, the number of Americans applying to college

is down by almost a million.

Over the last decade, it's dropped by almost 3 million.

There's also a student debt crisis and a debate about the actual value of a college degree.

All this means growing uncertainty for institutions of higher learning, especially for hundreds

of small colleges across the country, schools that are particularly dependent upon tuition

payments.

A declining applicant pool means less money to paper professors, maintain facilities, and

fund extracurriculars like sports, clubs, and student life.

Some colleges are already making cuts.

Others are shutting down.

So what is their path forward?

How can small colleges thrive and survive?

Well joining us now is Linda Ubre.

She's the president of Whittier College.

That's a four-year private liberal arts college in Los Angeles County with about 1,300

students.

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