HILLSDALE, MI - The first fall semester of the COVID-19 pandemic saw mixed enrollment results for Michigan liberal arts colleges.
Overall, Michigan Independent Colleges and Universities schools saw a 4% decline from fall 2019 to 2020, according to vice president Colby Cesaro. At Hillsdale College, first-year enrollment very slightly decreased by less than 1% during that timespan, according to data provided by the college.
It was typical of the last decade, which has been up-and-down for the traditionally white, Christian college in rural Hillsdale County. First year enrollment never went above 391 students and bottomed out at 361 in 2020.
But that trend changed in a big way the next year, as enrollment surged by 16% in fall 2021 at the school of 1,500. That was buoyed by a 53% increase in applications during the same timeframe.
Students cite two reasons for their interest in Hillsdale College -- less stringent COVID-19 policies and a classical education curriculum that sets the college apart from its peers.
Hillsdale College has a COVID-19 vaccination policy based on personal choice. Mask-wearing in classes is at the discretion of professors and has been recommended rather than required. The college ended the fall 2020 semester virtually, but has returned to in-person teaching ever since.
Support for these policies was reinforced in a January blog post by sophomore Jane Kitchen on former New York Times op-ed editor Bari Weiss’ platform Common Sense. She detailed her transfer to Hillsdale from the Pennsylvania-based all women’s Bryn Mawr College.
Related: Mitch McConnell lectures on Constitution, free speech at Hillsdale College
“I’ve been at Hillsdale for three weeks, and life here is blissfully normal,” Kitchen wrote. “I have sorority sisters. We get together and study and play board games. The student union and dining hall are packed. No one asks anyone else’s vaccine status. There are no mask mandates, and no mandatory COVID testing. You’ll see an occasional student in a mask but no one thinks anything of it.”
These thoughts remain in the minds of prospective Hillsdale College students today, including Ella Klein, a Nashville, Tennessee high school senior.
“People are really looking for the in-person experience and it’s just so important,” she said. “It’s definitely made it attractive during these times.”
In-person contact was at the top of the family’s priority list, Klein’s mother Dabney said.
“A lot of schools were not allowing (prospective students) to even attend class,” she said about recruitment visits. “They wouldn’t allow students to see dormitories. (Hillsdale) had a lot of access to campus, so Hillsdale was definitely one of the schools that gave us that opportunity to get a feel of the campus.”
COVID-19 policies have helped recruitment and enrollment, a Hillsdale College official said, adding that the draw to the schools is more than that, as “students are seeking what is good, even if they don’t fully realize that at the moment.”
“They see and they hear that what we’re doing here at Hillsdale College is good,” said Zach Miller, senior director of admissions. “When they come here to visit and tour with their parents, they see that it’s civil, friendly, fun, and inspiring. Studying at Hillsdale College is all those things and more, and, frankly, that’s what students want.”
Campus visits have been the most effective strategy for recruiting students, allowing them to “meet our students, sit in on a class, meet with an admissions officer, and truly see how the mission of the College is played out in the everyday,” Miller said.
Actor Tim Allen congratulated and offered advice to Hillsdale College graduates on May 8, 2021. Photo provided by Hillsdale College.
Classical education
Klein loved the small vibe of the campus, located in rural Hillsdale County that greatly differs from her suburban Nashville upbringing. She also connected with the school’s classical education curriculum, which she said is similar to her homeschool course material.
Dabney Klein described the core curriculum as a focus on literature, philosophy, theology, history and the fine arts.
“Classical education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue by nourishing the soul on truth, goodness and beauty so that, in Christ, a student is better able to know, glorify and enjoy God,” she said.
Hillsdale College describes its curriculum as way to “considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.”
Outgrowths of this learning model include the 1776 curriculum, released around the time critical race theory became part of the public discourse. Critics have labeled Hillsdale’s curriculum, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, as solely from the perspective of “elite white males,” while the college has defended it as a presentation of the “whole picture.”
Hillsdale provides its curriculum to dozens of schools across the country, including Waterbrook Christian Academy outside Flint, which will send its first student ever to Hillsdale, said Principal Dean Bowen.
The student chose Hillsdale College over offers from the University of Michigan and others due to the comfort with the campus and the easy transition in curriculum, he said.
“After seeing, feeling, experiencing, sitting in on at least one class, she just felt right about the environment and the quality of education,” he said.
Less than 1% of Hillsdale College’s student body comes from the schools that use its curriculum, said college spokeswoman Emily Stack Davis.
For Klein, a generous financial aid package has made it possible for her to attend Hillsdale this fall, her mother said. The total annual cost at Hillsdale College before financial aid, including tuition and board, is $42,182, according to the college.
Rather than accepting federal or state money, Hillsdale College uses “friends and donors” to provide more than $32 million in “private funds to support merit- based and need-based student aid.” Davis said.
“Nearly all Hillsdale College students (98%) benefit from this privately-funded assistance in the form of grants, loans, scholarships or student employment,” she said.
That last element clinched Klein’s decision to make the trip from down south to Hillsdale, Michigan, she said.
“They’ve been wonderful with it all to make Hillsdale even a possibility,” Klein said.
Read more from MLive:
Some small Michigan colleges see growth in first-year students, even during COVID-19 pandemic
Small Michigan colleges are becoming more diverse even as enrollment continues to decline
COVID forced Michigan colleges to ‘strip down everything’ they knew about recruitment