How colleges can overcome their crisis of confidence
CUMU was recently highlighted in the news. This article was originally published in The Baltimore Sun on November 17, 2025.
Recent news reports that the University System of Maryland recorded its highest enrollment in history this fall caught my attention. I noticed this partly because the announcement came immediately after the annual conference of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU), held in Baltimore, which I attended.
The timing of the news was curious, given that the conference theme, “The Power of Place,” emphasized the need for universities to deepen their engagement with local communities, in part as a strategy to confront declining public trust in higher education and stave off impending enrollment declines