If you lead enrollment at a career-focused school, the enrollment cliff could bring more competition for your adult learners in short order. The steep projected decline in U.S. high school graduates after 2025 means traditional universities are starting to recruit more working adults, career changers, and returning students to keep their enrollments up.
The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education projects a 13% decline in U.S. high school graduates from the 2025 peak through 2041. University career-training options are already available. In October 2025, Florida A&M University announced 50 healthcare and IT certificate programs, offered with MedCerts, for adult learners, job seekers, and working professionals.
For the next wave of applicants, a university’s continuing education office may now sit on the same shortlist as your school.
Career schools have an opportunity here, too. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported 10.2% growth in undergraduate certificate enrollment year over year in spring 2026, compared with 1.3% growth in undergraduate enrollment overall.
Universities still have to run the programs they add. The 2026 Institutional Perspectives on Microcredentials Report from UPCEA found that institutional adoption has stalled, with lack of resources, traditional mindsets, and legacy systems named as the biggest barriers to scaling. Career-focused schools already know how working adults enroll, study, and complete certifications. That experience is your edge over universities just entering your market.
Use the four checks below to identify advantages you can use, information applicants need, and program changes to explore.
1. Compare your program with the alternatives applicants consider
Consider a hypothetical healthcare program with evening classes and a required daytime clinical placement. A working adult comparing programs needs to know how each option would affect their paid hours.
Ask your admissions staff which alternatives applicants mention and what makes the decision difficult. Expect the answers to vary by audience: a career changer may need to understand the occupation, a returning student may need clarity about prior learning, and someone seeking advancement may prioritize employer recognition. Compare those options, including relevant community colleges, university continuing education programs, and other providers, against your program’s credential, entry requirements, full schedule, total cost, and evidence of outcomes.
Use those findings in program pages, admissions materials, and applicant conversations. For the healthcare program, show how class times and required placement hours compare, and claim a scheduling advantage only where the full timetable supports it.
2. Expand only where employer demand, student interest, and delivery capacity align
Before adding seats or programs, ask local employers which roles they need to fill and what credentials they require. Have admissions staff assess interest in the proposed program. Check both against your delivery capacity.
In the healthcare program example, the program director and clinical coordinator could check instructor availability, equipment, and placement-site agreements against the proposed intake. Admissions staff can ask prospective students whether they could attend the available placement hours. Expand once you’ve confirmed that you can deliver the program and that students can attend.
If the expansion lets graduates return for another credential, explain what credits or credentials carry forward and what they must complete next.
3. Publish the full cost and schedule so applicants can compare you with traditional universities
The 2026 Lumina Foundation–Gallup study found that 47% of adults who had stopped attending postsecondary education rated flexible course delivery as very important to re-enrolling; an equal share said the same about finishing in a short time frame. If a university option looks more flexible or faster to finish, applicants will notice. Use this finding to ask your own applicants which schedule and completion requirements could prevent them from enrolling.
Publish tuition, required expenses, available aid, attendance requirements, and realistic completion timelines. Separate training time from any additional licensing or certification steps required for employment.
In the healthcare program example, the program page could show when daytime placements occur and how many hours they require. That information could sit beside the evening class schedule. An applicant who can’t attend daytime placements can see that before applying, and your admissions staff can spend their time on applicants who can enroll and finish.
Check aid at the program level, too. Workforce Pell extends aid to eligible short-term training, but a short program is not automatically eligible; each program needs its own approval. Ask your financial aid staff to confirm your program’s approval before advertising this aid and to compare the aid available at competing programs.
4. Publish outcomes that new applicants want to achieve
Publish completion, relevant licensing or certification results, and employment outcomes. Define the student group, reporting period, and method behind each figure.
In the healthcare program example, the outcomes page could distinguish graduates employed in the field from graduates employed in any job. It could also keep occupational wage estimates separate from graduates’ actual earnings. Applicants need to understand what happened to students who took the path they are considering.
Use consistent definitions when comparing your outcomes with another provider’s.
Start with the program facing the most university competition
The healthcare program is one example. The same checks apply to any program where working adults weigh schedule, cost, and outcomes against a university option, from IT certificates to skilled trades. Choose one program where applicants are weighing a university alternative, and bring admissions staff and the program director together to work through the four checks.
Give marketing and admissions staff the information gaps to fix, and program leaders the delivery issues to investigate. You’ll know where your program wins the comparison, what you can substantiate in recruitment, and which student barriers still need attention.
The enrollment cliff will push more universities toward the adult learners your school already serves. They bring name recognition, but you bring experience scheduling, supporting, and graduating working adults. Use these four checks to make that experience visible to applicants before they choose.
