Some of the responses of colleges and universities to declining enrollments and diminishing resources are reviewed. Institutions have tried to reduce the size of their operations, reallocate resources internally, and retrench a number of faculty and programs. Several approaches to reductions, reallocations, and retrenchments in specific cases, including those at the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania State College System, are reviewed. Nine observations about trends in institutional behavior as colleges and universities approach the decade of the 1980s are presented, including: there is a need to be more sophisticated about projected enrollment declines since they and their impacts will vary by region of the country; national concentration on projected enrollment declines has diverted attention from the equally-important area of the "cost-income squeeze;" and traditional governance patterns in colleges and universities are not well-equipped to handle faculty participation in an era of declining resources. It is concluded that only a few institutions, which either are geographically located in areas of population growth or have exceptionally high academic reputations, will escape the consequences of the long-run changes facing higher education. Appended are: checklists for academic quality assessment and program evaluation; guidelines for use in planning retrenchment in the state colleges and university of Pennsylvania; 1976 recommended institutional regulations on academic freedom and tenure; policy document on discontinuance of academic programs at the University of Michigan; and financial exigency and staff reduction statement of the Association of American Colleges. A bibliography is included. (SW)