HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: Emerson College announces layoffs amidst enrollment decline linked to campus protests.

The college is blaming the enrollment decline in part on “negative press and social media” from the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and subsequent arrests.

In the early morning hours of April 25, 118 student protesters were arrested by Boston police when officers swept through the pro-Palestine encampment at Boylston Place Alley, a public right-of-way that leads to the State Transportation Center.

President Jay Bernhardt wrote that he expects the enrollment decline to last only one year, but the effects will ripple through the budget for the next several.

“We attribute this reduction to multiple factors, including national enrollment trends away from smaller private institutions, an enrollment deposit delay in response to the new FAFSA rollout, student protests targeting our yield events and campus tours, and negative press and social media generated from the demonstrations and arrests,” Bernhardt wrote in an email shared with the Globe.

There was plenty of warning going back to 2017: Long After Protests, Students Shun the University of Missouri.