Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | AUGUST 5, 2024 15 mated at $63,607 for the coming school year — as an effective option for closing the nonprofit university's budget hole. Service cuts would also offer diminishing returns, he noted. "One of the things that's very clear is you can't cut your way into financial stability," Ward said. "It has to be a combination of fiscal management and also increasing revenue through enrollment and non-tuition sources." UHart enrolled 5,916 undergraduate and graduate students in fall 2023. That was up 3% from the previous year, but down from 6,794 full- and part-time students in fall 2019. Ward said he stressed the need for innovation during a recent meeting with deans and faculty leaders. "I wanted to be clear there is no going back to the future," Ward said. "Wher- ever we take the university, it is going forward. You don't go back to a time … when our classrooms were full and new students were showing up on our shores in droves. We have to figure out new ways to get in front of learners." Strengthening partnerships Part of the path forward will be continuing partnerships with donors, major employers and even other colleges. Companies like Stanley Black & Decker, Hartford HealthCare, Pratt & Whitney and Hartford Steam Boiler have been key partners, providing donations, helping mold programs and offering other support, Ward said. This year, for example, Stanley Black & Decker donated $3 million for UHart scholarships to leading students from Greater Hartford. Separately, Stanley Black & Decker CEO and President Donald Allan Jr. — who also chairs UHart's board of regents — and his wife, Marilyn, donated $600,000 to support the university's career-readiness programs. Hartford HealthCare has sponsored a hospital floor simulation to train nursing students and others engaged in health education. It also provides clinical openings for students. "I do think part of our model and strategy moving forward is being engaged with local employers, to align our offerings with their needs and help shape the teaching and learning environment," Ward said. Infrastructure strategy In 2019, the university issued $133.6 million in tax-exempt bonds to, among other things, fund $58 million in campus renovations. That included construction of the 60,000-square- foot Francis X. and Nancy Hursey Center for Advanced Engineering and Health Professions. Two years ago, the university issued another $25.5 million in bonds to refurbish its Village Apartments student housing. This fall, UHart will open a new track and field facility funded by a $1 million gift from board of regents member and investment executive Kevin Grant, along with donations from Stanley Black & Decker, CVS/ Aetna, Robinson+Cole and others. The track and dorms might generate revenue through rentals to outside groups when not in use by the university, Ward said. Ward said he does not anticipate additional major infrastructure improvements in the near-term, but there could be smaller investments in student-experience enhancements, such as upgrades to dining halls. The university is also contemplating the sale of property assets, with a "couple parcels" in Bloomfield at the top of the consideration list, he said. A return home Ward's parents grew up in Hart- ford and now live in Bloomfield. His mother worked as a high school social studies teacher in West Hart- ford and Vernon, before joining the insurance industry. His father, Fred, ran a home improvement contracting business, and has long been active in the Hartford Jazz Society. Lawrence Ward attended Rockville High School in Vernon, earned a bachelor's degree in business admin- istration from UConn and a master's in higher education from the University of Michigan. He earned a doctorate in higher-ed management from the University of Pennsylvania. Ward most recently served as vice president of learner success and dean of campus life at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He said he was nominated for pres- ident vacancies at three Connecticut colleges, but only applied to the UHart job after reading the job description. "For me, it was about where my experience and skill set and back- ground and strengths can add value," Ward said. "When I read through the University of Hartford's leadership profile and got to the end, it felt like a good fit. And then, of course, because it was Hartford, the geography became incredibly important." Allan, UHart's board chair, said Ward is expected to focus on growing enroll- ment and the endowment, improving the student experience, as well as shoring up the harmony between students, faculty and administration. Financial stability is an important part of the job, but the university is already making gains, Allan noted. UHart could close its deficit over the next 18 months, he said. Allan said dozens of candidates were vetted during an "intense" and "robust" search for a new president. Ward's close connection to the region helped put him over the top, as did his charismatic leadership style and financial acumen, Allan said. "People are very much drawn to him and how he presents himself," Allan said. "He really has the civility to connect with a lot of different people, which, frankly, in this world is probably more and more unusual." UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD ENROLLMENT Challenges grow for higher education broadly By Michael Puffer mpuffer@hartfordbusiness.com T he University of Hartford is far from unique in facing financial headwinds, as colleges across the Northeast and beyond deal with demo- graphic shifts and inflation. "We do have a negative outlook on the sector as a whole," said Emily Wadhwani, lead higher education analyst for Fitch Ratings. "Hartford, they are among company. The question will be whether schools can find a sustainable fix to these problems, not a one-time fix." Higher education faces a declining customer base with the U.S. producing fewer high school graduates, as well as increasingly budget-conscious families, Wadhwani said. That's putting pressure on colleges that are heavily reliant on tuition, particularly smaller institu- tions with around 1,500 or fewer students. They can least afford enrollment dips. Colleges are also finding tuition hikes unpalatable at a time when they are increasingly required to issue financial aid to fill lecture halls, further compressing budget margins, Wadhwani said. Universities that prosper tend to be larger and have strong non-tuition revenue streams, such income-producing endowments or research that can be monetized, she said. "What we are seeing is a lot of haves and have-nots," Wadhwani said. "Where the have-nots have the most trouble is in the enrollment pipeline. … We are seeing more closures and consolidations, shrinking of staff. A good section of the market is really feeling the pressure." A Fitch analysis released in March found an increasing number of higher-education institutions running afoul of bond requirements. The number of colleges that either missed debt payments or failed to meet certain tech- nical bond conditions ranged from three to six per year between 2017 and 2022, to 17 in 2023, according to Fitch. Fitch's analysis shows colleges with bond problems in 2023 served high percentages of minority and low-income students, averaging 55% non-white enrollment. These colleges face a litany of challenges, including processing delays in federal financial aid applications; overtime pay proposals; new regulations on mergers and acquisitions; the U.S. Supreme Court's abolition of race-conscious admissions; as well as increasing state efforts to provide low-cost college to lower-income students, the analysis noted. Recovering enrollments The COVID-19 pandemic prompted enrollment fluc- tuations nationally in the past few years, said Jennifer Widness, president of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges. Some institutions have recovered more quickly than others, typically those that are the most selective, she said. "Others — both public and private — are working their way back," Widness said. "With smaller classes enrolling in both the fall of 2020 and the fall of 2021 at many schools, the fiscal impact of the pandemic will last for more than four years." Overall, enrollment at Connecticut colleges has been on an upswing for the past three years, reaching 195,033 students during the 2023-2024 academic year, according to data from the state Office of Higher Education. Widness also noted that the number of high school graduates in Connecticut has been in decline since 2017, a trend that's expected to continue through 2037. There are other challenges, including a steep reduction over the past decade in the amount of needs-based financial aid that Connecticut supplies to students at private, nonprofit colleges. In 2022, Connecticut spent $1,058 per undergrad- uate on financial aid, ranking it 18th among states, according to an estimate by the National Association of State Student Grant Aid Programs. Emily Wadhwani Jennifer Widness Donald Allan Jr. 2019 7K 6K 5K 2020 2021 2022 2023 STUDENT ENROLLMENT *Enrollment includes undergraduate and graduate students. | Source: UHart

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