A simple glance at the headlines paints a drastically different picture among the three Western Pennsylvania universities in the state’s System of Higher Education.
Slippery Rock’s enrollment last fall increased 2.75%, its largest gain in nearly a decade; and its retention rate of 86.4% is the best in university history and nearly 10% higher than the national average. Retention measures the number of students enrolled at a college who continue to be enrolled in subsequent years.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania also reported record-breaking retention — 78.2% — and its enrollment was stable, increasing by one student from fall 2024 to fall 2025.
But it’s a different story at Pennsylvania Western University.
PennWest, which comprises campuses in California, Clarion and Edinboro, saw enrollment decrease 2.64% in fall 2025. It furloughed 13 union employees last fall and is working through a process that would phase out dozens of academic offerings in an effort officials say will boost students’ academic experience.
“We need to continue to focus on the fact that our mission is access and affordability,” said state system Chancellor Christopher Fiorentino in an interview with TribLive. “We need to make sure that we’re spending every dollar wisely. So, that’s really what’s happening at PennWest.
“They have been the campuses that have suffered the most significant enrollment declines, but the program arrays are being strengthened across all of the campuses. We’ve taken a look at what everybody’s doing and challenged them to identify ways that they can deliver programs more efficiently.”
Tuition for an in-state undergraduate attending a state-owned university in the 2012-13 school year was $6,428; now, its just under $8,000 after seven years of flat tuition.
Enrollment cliff
In fall 2012, IUP had an enrollment of 15,668, making it the largest of the state system’s then 14 institutions.
Now, that number is 9,082 — a 42% drop.
“The so-called ‘enrollment cliff’ is no longer far away,” said IUP President Michael Driscoll. “We’re standing at the ledge. It’s a fact that the number of traditional-age college students is shrinking.”
The State System’s total enrollment has decreased by more than 32,000 students — about 28% — since the 2012-13 school year. Every school in the system, except for Slippery Rock and West Chester, has fewer students today than it did then.
Nationwide, college enrollment among 18- to 24-year-olds is down about 1.2 million from its peak in 2011.
“The challenges at Slippery Rock are at every school,” said Michael May, Slippery Rock’s vice president of enrollment management. “There’s a lot of discussion about the rising costs of higher education, the return of investment on that education and the demographics.”
The declines are not exclusive to the State System.
University of Pittsburgh and Penn State branch campuses have seen enrollment shrink over the years, leading in part to Penn State deciding to close seven of its branch campuses at the end of the Spring 2027 semester. In Western Pennsylvania, those campuses include New Kensington, Fayette and Shenango.
PennWest’s academic program review is its way of adapting to the times, according to Fiorentino.
“PennWest is very engaged in this with great urgency,” he said, “because that’s the school right now that’s most at risk, based on the demographic challenges and what’s happened to their enrollments over the past seven, eight years.”
PennWest is working through a process that cuts dozens of academic offerings and shifts some minors to certificates. Although some students and staff have raised concerns, officials say the updated programming will enhance students’ learning experiences and better meet workforce needs.
“Students will have much greater flexibility to chart their own path through a degree program,” said PennWest spokeswoman Kelly Repinski. “Students also will have access to more certificates that will enhance their credentials. This new model will serve students much more effectively. Once the changes are in place, we plan to hold the curriculum steady for several years, making small adjustments as we learn.”
Although PennWest’s enrollment declined again last fall, the 2.64% decrease was the smallest enrollment reduction figure at PennWest — or at its three campuses before they merged in 2022 — in the past 15 years.
The overall head count fell from 14,477 in 2021-22 to 10,834 in 2025-26. That’s a 25% decline in five years.
General population decline in Northwestern Pennsylvania is bleak: Erie County, where Edinboro is located, is projected to experience a 4.7% population decline from 2000 to 2030, according to the Pennsylvania State Data Center. Clarion County is projected to see a 9.3% decrease in that same time frame.
But Repinski believes the worst has passed.
“We are fortunate that in Western Pennsylvania, much of the impact of the enrollment cliff has already happened,” she said. “The school districts that serve as our primary pipelines are projected to remain relatively stable, with only slight declines, for the foreseeable future.”
Data from this spring semester indicates PennWest surpassed enrollment projections, with a total headcount reaching 10,121 students. That’s 2.43% above its target of 9,881. The fall-to-spring retention rate is at 88.57%.
Among in-state students, 16% of PennWest students are from Allegheny County, 13% from Erie County and 9% from Washington County, according to the university.
Change and adapt
IUP has adjusted its programming to adapt to demographic realities, Fiorentino said. Indiana County is projected to experience a whopping 26% population decrease by 2030.
This fall, IUP launched a new general education program; in 2024, it underwent a restructuring of academic departments. Plans for a proposed College of Osteopathic Medicine continue to advance.
“Academic restructuring is just part of our processes,” said IUP spokeswoman Michelle Fryling. “We made a very clear decision to be as transparent and collaborative as possible, and that work continues with those guidelines in mind.”
Repinski believes the updated academic programming at PennWest puts the university in a good position to adjust as any demographic changes happen. PennWest experiences success as the system’s largest provider of online education, with 4,448 students last fall; it has 3,200 online graduate students, the most in the system.
“(PennWest) is the school that’s most focused on offering online programs, and we’re seeing now that PennWest actually has the largest population of graduate students across all the universities — more than IUP, more than West Chester — and to a great extent, that’s because they have been expanding their online offerings,” Fiorentino said.
Roughly 95% of students in the state system graduate in only half of all programs offered, according to State System officials.
Asked what would make PennWest’s updated academic programming a success, Fiorentino said, “We need our schools to be living within the enrollments that they’re able to achieve.”
‘Cautiously optimistic’
There’s no great answer to why Slippery Rock isn’t suffering enrollment declines the way other colleges are, Fiorentino said. Butler County is expected to grow its population by 26.7% from 2000 to 2030.
“They’re focused on offering opportunities to students,” he said. “It may just be that there are the most students who find the Slippery Rock campus the place they want to be.”
May attributes Slippery Rock offering “relevant, academic programs in demand with the Western Pennsylvania workforce.” He’s cautiously optimistic with future growth.
Fiorentino said Slippery Rock can’t rest on its laurels.
“I’m challenging the Slippery Rock president as much as any of the other presidents to make sure that we’re focused on offering the array of programs that are going to meet the needs of the commonwealth, that they’re looking hard at the potential impact of the demographic changes that are going to occur over the next five years, because we need to make sure that we continue to operate efficiently, to be healthy and to be able to meet the needs of the commonwealth,” he said.
Part of that includes attracting nontraditional college students, making programs easier for credits to transfer into, and sharing courses between schools.
“If we can offer programs with higher enrollments, then we can deliver them more efficiently,” Fiorentino said. “If there are more enrollments, that means there are more students paying tuition to be in that program, and that means it’s easier for us to support it.”
