New programs, few students

By Charlotte Hsu

Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

George Ladkany is the type of scholar UNLV officials would hate to lose as they try to burnish the university’s reputation.

A student in the Master of Science program in biomedical engineering, he is working with a team of researchers on a U.S. Army-funded project aimed at better protecting soldiers from explosions.

Well-spoken and opinionated, Ladkany is enthusiastic about the university and the opportunities it offers students.

The 3-1/2-year-old biomedical engineering program, he said, can draw people to the school. The program was a major reason he stayed in Las Vegas after studying mechanical engineering as a UNLV undergraduate.

Leaders of the engineering college, too, believe their biomedical program has the potential to attract more students like Ladkany.

The problem is, it hasn’t.

Ladkany is one of two people in the program, which has produced two graduates since its inception in fall 2004. When officials proposed the program, they believed it would enroll eight students in fall 2006 and 12 in fall 2008.

As it turns out, the founders of Ladkany’s program were not the only ones whose predictions were wrong.

When writing program proposals, officials at the state’s seven public colleges overestimated enrollment for 18 of 25 programs that were in their third year in 2006. Enrollment in 11 of 13 fifth-year programs fell short of expectations. For 16 programs, less than half the number of students projected to sign up did.

With Nevada universities facing budget cuts and tuition increases, mistakes such as these translate into higher costs for universities and students. Time and money spent on giving a small number of students the degrees they were promised are not available for other needs.

Similar problems exist at universities across the nation. But they are especially acute in Nevada, whose university system is struggling not only to find money for growth but also to pay for a greater variety and higher quality of curriculum. The margin of error, already small, is approaching zero in the current budget climate.

Because the projections for proposed new programs are the basis for decisions about reallocation of resources, they need to reflect student demand, Regent Steve Sisolak said.

“We’re going to guess wrong sometimes, but if it keeps happening I think they need to look at how they’re making their estimates,” he said.

In June, the Nevada System of Higher Education tightened program proposal guidelines, requiring officials to spell out how they made predictions. The aim is to help administrators avoid past mistakes that contributed to over-optimistic expectations.

As a result of another recent change, administrators must better explain how they will pay for new offerings.

Whether these standards will yield more realistic assessments of programs’ prospects is yet to be seen.

One reason good estimates are important is the reluctance to eliminate programs no matter how small the enrollment. The last time UNLV discontinued a program was in 1998, when it eliminated a Bachelor of Science program in postsecondary and adult education. In contrast, since 1998, the school has launched 61 new programs.

“It’s very hard for universities to give up programs that people worked hard for,” said UNLV Provost Neal Smatresk.

Complicating matters, schools have an obligation to keep dying programs afloat long enough for students already enrolled in them to graduate, said Lesley DiMare, provost of the 5-year-old Nevada State College.

Professors often contend that new degree programs are “free” when they require no additional hires or bring in enough research dollars to cover equipment and other needs, as in the case of UNLV’s biomedical engineering program. But these “free” programs still eat up faculty time and classroom space that schools could devote to other purposes.

“There’s so many programs that might come in under-allocated, especially basic programs that students can’t get into,” Sisolak said. “While they might not be as glamorous or prestigious as some of these new programs that get instituted, sometimes there’s more demand for them.”

But holding people accountable for poor projections is difficult because in many cases, by the time new programs mature, their founders have left, officials said.

Plus, making estimates sometimes involves a lot of guesswork.

“When they try to forecast these enrollments, it is just very difficult because there are just so many different pieces of the puzzle,” Regent Mark Alden said.

To gauge interest in new areas of study, schools survey existing and potential students. Academics talk to industry leaders about demand for new employees. The belief is that people are more likely to seek degrees in fields where jobs are plentiful and pay well.

Projecting enrollment can be easier in areas such as nursing that are already turning away applicants. In popular fields, administrators can decide how many dollars and faculty members to devote to a new program and be confident that the number of students those resources can support will sign up.

Smatresk, who began at UNLV in 2007, has a theory as to why projected enrollments often fail to materialize.

“When people put programs together, they put them together as part of a marketing and sales job ... and they put their best foot forward,” he said. “Thus, they tend to be optimistic, sometimes unreasonably so.”

But administrators who make overly upbeat estimates risk investing resources poorly. “I would rather under-promise and over-deliver,” Smatresk said.

If 100 students express interest in a program, Smatresk figures that 40 or fewer of those would enroll. In any case, assuming all 100 would enroll would be unrealistic, said James Samels, whose consulting firm conducted a feasibility study for the College of Southern Nevada’s Bachelor of Science program in dental hygiene.

Nevertheless, a third-year enrollment estimate for that program — 254 students — included every person who, on a survey, indicated an interest in entering the program, according to the proposal for the new offering.

“The projections for (the program) appear to be maximum possible enrollment projections and assume space, faculty, and equipment to support the enrollment,” Frank DiPuma, CSN’s director of institutional research, wrote in an e-mail.

Which brings up another problem. Sometimes estimates don’t pan out because schools commit too few resources to young programs. In some cases, graduates in these high-demand fields are crucial as Las Vegas attempts to diversify its economy.

Hyla Winters, dean of CSN’s school of health sciences, says the dental hygiene bachelor’s program and a fledgling associate’s degree program in radiation therapy technology are missing enrollment goals partly because of poor marketing.

Dental hygiene enrolled 31 students in fall 2006, a fraction of the 254 anticipated. Radiation therapy technology had 18 students, half the expected number.

Informational pamphlets the college printed in the fall were among the first efforts to advertise those programs locally, said Winters, who became dean in 2006. She and student services staff are creating a recruiting plan for health sciences fields.

In 2003, the year before CSN launched its new offerings, a focus group of allied health and human services professionals advised the college to bolster advertising. The professionals complained that the college “has excellent programs that are a best-kept secret externally,” according to a focus group summary.

The system of higher education does not ask schools to provide marketing plans for new programs.

Though making realistic projections matters, figuring out what to do when estimates don’t materialize is more important, some college officials say.

In the end, administrators will have tough decision to make. Some, such as letting go of poor performing programs, will be unpopular.

NSC’s DiMare, who started her job in July 2007, does not know how the estimates for seven 5-year-old programs in the college’s school of liberal arts were made.

Projections showed the programs spending about $750,000 in new money in their fifth year to serve 1,054 students. Last year, their fifth, the programs actually spent about $700,000 to serve a reported 268 students, according to a report regents reviewed in November.

The enrollment figures are low partly because many students, including those who have not yet declared majors, were left out.

There’s no such explanation for at least one of the new programs. The college will soon shut down an economics program that enrolled two students in fall 2006, the program’s fifth year, DiMare said.

“When we’re talking about a program with two students, there’s no viable reason for maintaining that,” she said, noting that many people interested in economics have enrolled in a popular business administration program.

At UNLV, officials said they will try to eliminate a low-yield program for every new one they start. The first to go will be the school’s Bachelor of Science degree in health sciences, which has lost relevance as employers look for graduates with specialized degrees in fields such as epidemiology and physical therapy.

The biomedical engineering program’s low enrollment also concerns Smatresk.

“Biomedical engineering is a high-demand area ... So should we give it up?” he said. “Or should we build the capability because we need the program?”

One reason the program has grown slowly is that the year it was approved, the professor overseeing it moved to the East Coast, said Eric Sandgren, dean of UNLV’s engineering college. The school has hired a replacement, but that will not guarantee success.

For the program to flourish, Sandgren said, “it will take more advertising. We are working on our Web site and making the research activity more visible to more students.” Providing more research opportunities for students and adding a faculty member would also help.

Demand for the new program exists, he said.

Smatresk said no plans have been made to cut the biomedical engineering degree and he “would like to see that program be successful.”

The challenge, then, is to persuade students to enroll. And the programs’ proponents, at least for now, still have time to prove they can do that.