Abstract
In contrast to 2018, the 2021 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments showed a decrease in undergraduate student enrollment in journalism and mass communication programs as well as decreases in the percentage of minority undergraduate and graduate students enrolled. In addition, it showed an increase in the percentage of programs reporting decreases in their operating budgets and increases in hiring freezes for faculty and staff. These findings, which undoubtedly were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, reflect overall trends in student enrollment and finances at colleges and universities nationwide. However, on a more positive note, the 2021 survey also showed increases in graduate student enrollment as well as continued growth in the percentage of programs offering online degrees and the percentage of students enrolled in journalism sequences.
Keywords
In the 2018 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments (McLaughlin et al., 2020), we reported that the number of students enrolled in undergraduate and master’s programs had remained fairly stable since 2015 and that the percentage of minority students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate degree programs had increased. In addition, we observed that the percentages of programs that saw increases in their operating budgets and/or decreases in hiring freezes had increased.
The postsecondary education landscape has changed dramatically since that time, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (DePietro, 2020; Hess, 2020). The impacts of the pandemic on higher education broadly cannot be overstated. COVID-19 created educational, psychological, and financial challenges for many students (Fruehwirth et al., 2021; Reyes-Portillo et al., 2022) and led to decreased funding and other financial concerns for colleges and universities (Dickler, 2022).
Amid these changes, it is not surprising that in 2021 the number of undergraduate students enrolled in Journalism and Mass Communication programs was down by almost 10%, and many programs reported decreases in operating budgets and/or increases in hiring freezes for faculty and staff. In addition, there was a decrease in the percentage of minority students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
On a more positive note, data revealed an increase in enrollment among graduate students as well as continued growth in online learning. In addition, we observed an increase in the number of students enrolled in journalism sequences—continuing a trend observed in the 2018 survey.
These are some of the key findings from the 2021 Survey of Journalism and Mass Communication Enrollments. More detailed findings, and the implications of these findings, are discussed below.
Method
The population for the 2021 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments comprised the programs listed in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s (AEJMC) Journalism & Mass Communication Directory.
Program administrators (N = 428) were individually contacted via email invitation and hard copy invitation in early November 2021. In addition, phone calls were made at this time to programs that were members of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC). The link to the questionnaire, hosted in Qualtrics, was included in the initial email invitation. Once administrators accessed the link and read the information sheet, they were provided with the option to complete the questionnaire online or download and fill out a PDF or Word version of the questionnaire and return it via email. Email reminders were sent and phone call reminders were made in early December, and a second email reminder was sent in early January.
In an effort to increase the number of responding programs, the deadline was extended to spring 2022. Accordingly, another round of email invitations, hard copy invitations, and phone calls was made in early February. A final reminder email was sent to all non-responding programs in mid-March. Finally, to facilitate same-program comparisons of the basic enrollment and degrees granted data, another email invitation that included a link to a short form of the questionnaire was sent in May 2022 to all non-responding programs that had participated in the 2018 iteration of the survey.
These efforts resulted in a sample of 154 programs (long form n = 141; short form n = 13) and an overall response rate of 36%, with a higher response rate among ASJMC member schools of 55%. Among the participating programs, 79 were members of ASJMC, and 58 were accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education and Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC).
As with previous iterations of the survey, the questionnaire asked program administrators to provide data regarding degree programs offered, enrollments (Fall 2021) and the number of degrees granted (2020-2021 academic year) to undergraduate and graduate students, enrollments and the number of degrees granted to undergraduate and graduate students broken down by demographics, and enrollments and the number of degrees granted to undergraduates broken down by specific journalism and mass communication sequences. In addition, the questionnaire asked program administrators to provide data regarding curriculum and student development (e.g., course competencies, student media, internship opportunities, study abroad opportunities), finance and administration (e.g., operating budget changes, hiring freezes), as well as institution characteristics (i.e., type of institution, funding, total enrollment size, and Carnegie classification) to facilitate comparisons with peer institutions, which are summarized in Table 1. 1
Institution Characteristics.
Findings
Trends in degree programs offered, overall enrollments, and the overall number of degrees granted were captured by comparing data from the programs that reported data in both 2018 and 2021. All other trends were captured using the full set of data from 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Degrees Offered
Among the 154 journalism and mass communication programs that reported the types of degrees offered by their unit, 99.4% offered a bachelor’s degree, 49.3% offered a professional master’s degree, 33.7% offered a research master’s degree, and 18.7% offered a doctoral degree.
In terms of distance learning, 16.9% of programs offered a bachelor’s degree online, 29.2% offered a professional master’s degree online, 4.5% offered a research master’s degree online, and 1.2% offered a doctoral degree online. Comparing across the 102 programs that reported data in 2018 and 2021, the percentage of programs that offered online bachelor’s degrees remained about the same. However, the percentage of programs that offered online professional master’s degrees increased by 12.9 percentage points. The percentage of programs that offered online research master’s degrees remained about the same, as did the percentage of programs that offered online doctoral degrees.
Enrollments and Degrees Granted
As shown in Figure 1, among the programs that reported data on enrollment in both 2018 and 2021, undergraduate enrollment decreased by 9.9%, whereas master’s enrollment increased by 21.6%, and PhD enrollment increased by 24.6%. Also, as shown in Figure 2, among the programs that reported data on degrees granted in both 2018 and 2021, the number of bachelor’s degrees granted decreased by 2.3%, the number of master’s degrees granted increased by 14.3%, and the number of doctoral degrees granted decreased by 6.6%.
Undergraduate and Graduate Enrollments for 2018 and 2021, Same Programs.
Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees Granted for 2018 and 2021, Same Programs.
In addition, in terms of distance learning, 2.7% of undergraduate students, 54.6% of professional master’s students, 12.0% of research master’s students, and 0.2% of PhD students were enrolled online. Comparing across the 99 programs that reported data on enrollment in 2018 and 2021, the percentage of undergraduate students enrolled online remained about the same, the percentage of professional master’s students enrolled online increased by 16 percentage points, the percentage of research master’s students enrolled online remained about the same, as did the percentage of PhD students enrolled online.
Also, 1.2% of bachelor’s degrees, 33.2% professional master’s degrees, 7.5% of research master’s degrees, and 17.1% of doctoral degrees were granted to students in online programs. Comparing across the 68 programs that reported data on degrees granted in 2018 and 2021, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to students in online programs remained about the same, the percentage of professional master’s degrees granted to students in online programs decreased by 2.3 percentage points, whereas the percentage of research master’s degrees granted to students online increased by 10.1 percentage points, and the percentage of doctoral degrees granted to students online increased by 6.9 percentage points.
Enrollments and Degrees Granted by Student Demographics
Females continued to comprise the majority of journalism and mass communication students. Specifically, females comprised 60.1% of undergraduate students, 72.0% of master’s students, and 65.5% of PhD students. Comparing across 2018 and 2021, the percentage of female undergraduate students remained about the same, whereas the percentage of female master’s students increased by 6.7 percentage points, and the percentage of female PhD students increased by 7.1 percentage points.
Similarly, females were granted the majority of degrees. Specifically, females were granted 67.5% of bachelor’s degrees, 71.3% of master’s degrees, and 60.4% of doctoral degrees. Comparing across 2018 and 2021, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to females remained about the same, the percentage of master’s degrees granted to females increased by 2.4 percentage points, whereas the percentage of doctoral degrees granted to females decreased by 1.6 percentage points.
Minority students (non-White, U.S. citizens) comprised 30.9% of undergraduate students, 34.7% of master’s students, and 18.2% of PhD students. Comparing across 2018 and 2021, the percentage of minority undergraduate students decreased by 4.8 percentage points, the percentage of minority master’s students remained about the same, and the percentage of minority PhD students decreased by 5.9%. Among specific racial and ethnic minority groups, the most notable trend was a decrease in the percentage of Hispanic undergraduate students (from 16.1% to 11.5%). In addition, there was an increase in the percentage of international master’s (from 9.1% to 12.8%) and PhD students (from 28.8% to 32%).
Minority students were granted 27.6% of bachelor’s degrees, 31.3% of master’s degrees, and 33.7% of doctoral degrees. Comparing across 2018 and 2021, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to minority students decreased by 3.2 percentage points, the percentage of master’s degrees granted to minority students decreased by 5.7 percentage points, whereas the percentage of doctoral degrees granted to minority students increased by 13.2 percentage points. Among specific racial and ethnic minority groups, some notable trends include decreases in the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to Hispanic (from 14% to 11%) and Black (from 9.8% to 8.3%) students, a decrease in the percentage of master’s degrees granted to Hispanic (from 11.2% to 8.7%) and Asian (from 3.6% to 2.2%) students, and an increase in the percentage of doctoral degrees granted to Black (5.5% to 10.5%) and Hispanic (1.6% to 8.1%) students. In addition, there was a decrease in the percentage of master’s degrees (from 13.5% to 9.4%) and doctoral degrees (from 31.5% to 24.4%) granted to international students.
Enrollments and Degrees Granted by Sequence Area
As shown in Figure 3, strategic communication sequences remain the most popular among undergraduate students (36.2% enrolled), followed by journalism sequences (31.1% enrolled), and then media production and management sequences (11.0% enrolled). 2 However, the percentage of undergraduate students enrolled in strategic communication sequences decreased by 1.4 percentage points from 2018, whereas the percentage enrolled in journalism sequences increased by 4.8 percentage points, and the percentage enrolled in media production and management sequences increased by 2.2 percentage points. Figure 4 illustrates the trends in enrollment in specific sequences.
Percentage of Undergraduate Enrollments by Broad Sequence Areas for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Percentage of Undergraduate Enrollments by Specific Sequences for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Also as shown in Figure 5, the highest percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted was in strategic communication sequences (47.3%), followed by journalism sequences (29.2%), and then media production and management sequences (7.4%). Moreover, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted in strategic communication sequences increased by 6.1 percentage points from 2018, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted in journalism sequences increased by 6.0 percentage points, whereas the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted in media production and management sequences decreased by 2.2 percentage points. Figure 6 illustrates the trend in degrees granted in specific sequences.
Percentage of Bachelor’s Degrees Granted by Broad Sequence Areas for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Percentage of Bachelor’s Degrees Granted by Specific Sequences for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Curriculum and Student Development
As shown in Figure 7, the majority of programs reported offering courses that focus on media ethics (82.1%), cross-cultural communication (67.5%), media literacy (65.0%), visual storytelling (82.1%), web layout and design (56.1%), web content production (54.5%), and data analytics (51.2%). Comparing across 2018 and 2021, the percentage of programs that offered courses on data analytics increased by 7.9 percentage points, the percentage of programs that offered courses focusing primarily on cross-cultural communication increased by 5.1 percentage points, and the percentage of programs that offered courses on media literacy remained about the same. The percentage of programs that offered courses in all other competency areas decreased, including media ethics (4.4 percentage points), entrepreneurship (6.3 percentage points), visual storytelling (6.6 percentage points), web layout and design (9.9 percentage points), and web content production (11.5 percentage points).
Percentage of Programs That Offer Undergraduate Courses Focused Primarily on the Development of Specific Competencies or Skills for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
As shown in Figure 8, newspapers (81.7%), radio stations (69.2%), and TV stations (54.2%) remain the most common student-run media. Moreover, comparing across 2018 and 2021, the percentage of programs that reported having a student-run newspaper increased by 1.7 percentage points, the percentage of programs that reported having a student-run TV stations increased by 2.5 percentage points, and the percentage of programs that reported having a student-run radio station increased by 5.8 percentage points.
Percentage of Programs That Have Student-Run Media for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
In terms of learning outside of the classroom, 35.4% of programs reported internship credit as a requirement for students in all major sequences, an increase of 1.6 percentage points from 2018. Also, 93.2% of programs reported offering study abroad opportunities, a decrease of 3.5 percentage points from 2018, and 53.4% of programs reported offering domestic study away opportunities, such as study at another U.S. institution, faculty-led trips, and so on, which remained about the same compared with 2018.
Finance and Administration
As shown in Figure 9, 40.8% of programs reported a decrease in their operating budget, an increase of 16.2 percentage points from 2018. Also, 23.2% of programs reported hiring freezes, an increase of 4.8 percentage points from 2018.
Percentage of Programs That Saw Changes in Their Operating Budgets for 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Discussion
As mentioned previously, the 2018 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments saw positive trends regarding overall student enrollment, minority student enrollment, and program finances. However, since that time, colleges and universities nationwide have experienced large-scale disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, the findings from the 2021 survey reported above must be interpreted in light of this context. Moreover, many findings reported here parallel broader trends in higher education in general or within other disciplines.
Most notably, same-program comparison shows enrollment among undergraduate students is down by almost 10% since 2018. This decrease is consistent with the overall nationwide decline in undergraduate enrollment following COVID-19. Specifically, there has been a 9.4% decrease in college enrollment since 2020 (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022).
Same-school comparisons also show that the percentage of racial and ethnic minority undergraduate and graduate students enrolled is down since 2018. This also is consistent with overall nationwide college enrollment trends. Indeed, Black and Hispanic students have reported much higher incidences of academic and financial stress as a result of COVID-19 than White students (Reyes-Portillo et al., 2022; see also, Bulman & Fairlie, 2022). At the same time, same-school comparisons show increased enrollment among international graduate students.
On a more positive note, there was an increase in enrollment among graduate students, particularly professional master’s students. This growth is being helped by the continued increase in the number of programs offering online degrees, as a little over half of professional master’s students are enrolled online. As discussed previously (McLaughlin et al., 2020), online programs cater to working professionals, allowing a demographic to pursue a graduate degree that would not otherwise have the opportunity (Weismann et al., 2016). In addition to this being a continued trend, it is also quite likely that the extra time at home during COVID-19 lockdowns along with the trend toward programs and institutions moving away from requiring standardized test scores (e.g., Graduate Record Examination [GRE]) may have prompted additional inspiration, desire, and access to seek an advanced degree (LaneTerralever, 2022). Indeed, reports show that law schools, MBA programs, and medical schools saw dramatic increases in the number of applicants around this time (LaneTerralever, 2022). In addition, the growth in graduate enrollment may reflect an increase in the number of students who chose to delay their graduation to wait for an improved job market (DePietro, 2020). For example, in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, 18.0% of Master’s students and 35.5% of PhD students intentionally delayed their graduation during COVID-19 (Saw et al., 2020).
In addition to the potential impact of COVID-19 on trends in enrollment, we also saw its likely impact on finances: A larger percentage of programs reported decreases in operating budgets and/or increases in hiring freezes for faculty and staff. This is consistent with overall nationwide trends. Many colleges and universities have struggled financially due to declines in enrollment and decreased state funding (Dickler, 2022).
Regarding areas of concentration, curriculum, and student development—things that perhaps were less likely to have been impacted by COVID-19—as with the previous iteration of the survey, the data showed an increase in the percentage of students enrolled in journalism sequences. As discussed previously (McLaughlin et al., 2020), this trend may reflect efforts taken by programs to modernize and diversify their journalism curriculum (e.g., Mensing, 2017). It may also reflect an interest among students. A Washington Post article attributes the increasing enrollment in journalism sequences to a variety of reasons, including a backlash of sorts toward claims by the Trump administration of media bias and fake news, a passion to serve the public and give voice to overlooked and underrepresented communities, and an excitement over the storytelling potential of social media (Anderson, 2018).
In addition to the increase in the percentage of students enrolled in journalism sequences, 2021 also showed that the majority of programs continue to have student newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations. In addition, this year saw an increase in the percentage of programs that have student newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations, agencies, and digital media. This stands in contrast to the 2018 survey, which saw a decrease in the percentage of programs that had student newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, and agencies.
The findings discussed above should be interpreted in light of the sample, which comprises only 36% of the programs contacted. Furthermore, they should be considered in light of the changing composition of the sample across the three iterations illustrated in the figures (2015, 2018, and 2021). That is, it may be the case that some of the observed trends were influenced, in part, by differences in the mix of programs represented in 2015, 2018, and 2021, especially 2018 and 2021 for any trends based on same-program comparisons. In addition, although COVID-19 undoubtedly influenced many of these trends, we cannot determine just how much of an influence it had compared with other factors that may have also influenced the observed changes that have occurred over the last 3 years.
Taken together, the findings from the 2021 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments highlight some concerns as well as some positive news. It remains to be seen how well Journalism and Mass Communication programs will rebound as the influence of COVID-19 on postsecondary education recedes.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) declared receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for the 2021 Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments was provided by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (principal sponsor) and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (supporting sponsor).
