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By  Lee Gardner and  Audrey Williams June August 17, 2022

If there’s a primary vital sign for colleges, a crude point of reference for outside observers, like the pulse of an emergency-room patient, it’s student enrollment. A college with thousands of students is usually a sign of healthy fiscal and reputational footing.

Colleges with 1,000 students or fewer may be headed for intensive care, or worse.

Small comes with inherent challenges. Smaller institutions can’t take advantage of the economies of scale that bigger ones can, and they are overly dependent on each and every student’s tuition dollars. With so little margin for error, sliding enrollment or poor spending decisions can spiral toward insolvency or even closure.

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If there’s a primary vital sign for colleges, a crude point of reference for outside observers, like the pulse of an emergency-room patient, it’s student enrollment. A college with thousands of students is usually a sign of healthy fiscal and reputational footing.

Colleges with 1,000 students or fewer may be headed for intensive care, or worse.

Small comes with inherent challenges. Smaller institutions can’t take advantage of the economies of scale that bigger ones can, and they are overly dependent on each and every student’s tuition dollars. With so little margin for error, sliding enrollment or poor spending decisions can spiral toward insolvency or even closure.

Enrollment at many of these colleges of 1,000 students or fewer was already flagging over recent years, a result of increased competition for the waning number of college-bound high-school graduates. Covid-19 dealt them another shock to the system.

In 2010 there were 395 private, nonprofit four-year colleges with 1,000 students or fewer, according to a Chronicle analysis of enrollment data from the U.S. Department of Education.

In 2020, the most recent year for which federal data were available, there were 435.

There’s no invisible line of peril a college crosses by having 1,000 students or fewer, and no alarm system that alerts accreditors and reporters. But institutions with such small enrollments tend to be among the most financially vulnerable, experts say.

“If you were challenged before Covid and you haven’t figured out how to strengthen your position in the market, you’re going to be challenged even more,” said Nanci Tessier, a principal of Art & Science Group, a consulting company that works with colleges.

Leaders at small colleges say they’ve spent the last year overhauling their academic programs, bolstering their enrollment offices, and expanding their online-learning options to appeal to more nontraditional students.

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