According to this updated story, Chancellor Lane did a 180 on his decision to avoid the media and SIUC lost 95 international students year to year. Normally, that wouldn't be significant but as thin as SIUC's enrollment increases have been over the past several years, any drop is going to have an outsized impact. This is also the smallest freshman class since 2022.
As was noted in the comments on the previous post, the drop in incoming students may be due to the lack of attention SIUC administration has paid to facilities over the past 25 years. The last major upgrades to infrastructure were the new student services building football stadium and Arena renovation. There is no real need for the Tedrick Welcome Centeras the student services building could easily serve that function. The Tedricks have donated a lot of money to the university over the years but do not have anything on campus to show for it. A new welcome center is nice but does nothing to fix the leaks in the roof at Quigley Hall or the broken book shelves in Morris Library. Students come here because of solid programs, facilities that support them financial aid. Anything else is window dressing. No student, save for those on athletic scholarship, comes here because of the athletic program.
Well said! By the time the Tedrick Welcome Center opens there may be no new students to welcome since it is irrelevant and just a Potemkin Village showplace. Student Services is huge enough to accommodate such a Center. Instead, the money could have gone to repairing the damaged infrastructure in SIUC to say nothing of the forthcoming feast money the Chancellor is spending to "thank" faculty and students!.
ReplyDeleteBut nobody cares. SIUC is long known for being an administrator's university oblivious to the concerns of faculty, staff, Physical Plant workers, janitors, and students. Ironically, universities are now under attack for supposedly having left-wing faculty in control. But what about the real issues of administrators who care nothing for the students they attract here, many of whom are in desperate need of introductory courses to help them through their first year in a challenging educational environment, otherwise they leave frustrated with huge debts, and spread the word around.. If the Police have Internal Affairs, surely a similar body should be set up nationally to investigate universities who are wasting public money. Many past and present administrators believe that students are coming here just for sport or for experiencing the multitudes of overpaid administrators. They are not and SIUC's constant failing should be a matter of urgent public concern and attention. It is Education that counts, not bad administration.
How is it 2025 and so many local people (often over the age of 50??) still don't seem to understand what attracts the modern student?
ReplyDeleteAll 69 power-5 conference schools have increased enrollment in the last 20 years. Some have doubled. There are some that are now close to 3X enrollment over the last 2 decades. 3X!!!! The value of their education has not doubled. The tuition has not declined. Their education has not materially increased nor has the value if a degree from those schools.
Students don't want to go to a school where there is nothing to do.
They dont want to wonder over to a football stadium with 500 students or go to a basketball or volleyball game with 100 other fans. They want excitement. They want to go to events that are fun and ooze excitment. They want to go to games that there parents can watch on TV and say "ohhh...did you see X and Y" and then converse with their friends about athletics - even if they actually care ZERO about sports.
Kids don't drink as much as they used to. They don't want just partys and alcohol. They want - they MUST have social activities with other students. Thats what sports are for. Thats what students tell their parents. That is true in almost every nation wide survey of the last 20 years and that is why SIU continually invests in sports and why Missouri State just moved up to Div 1 football.
U of I, Alabama or Mizzous' classrooms are in no better shape than ours. 20% of classes are online...even when on campus. Why on earth would SIU fix and old classroom that us seeing less and less in person students? What a terrible Return on Investment that would be.
Finally: If you are asking SIU and SEMO students why they choose their respective school and they something like "academics" and don't answer social reasons like a good sports program, etc you are asking the wrong question to the wrong person. You are asking students who choose a school with enrollment issues why they chose the school with declining enrollment. That is not what you should be doing. You should be asking the student who chose another school over SIU or SEMO why they didn't chose SIU or SEMO. They will include athletic programs/student activities as part of their answer 99% of the time. SIU knows this which is why they keep investing in athletics.
When a business is failing they don't ask the customer who still goes there why they go there...they ask the customers who use to go there what it would take to get them back. When business drops 50% you don't want to talk to the people who still eat there....you want to talk to the 50% who stopped eating there.
Again, Sports! SIUC is losing $1 million a year and is some $9 million in debt by now - probably more. If buildings are falling apart, then students are not going to come here for specialist programs crucial for their future careers. They will go elsewhere. The job market is very difficult now and it is crucial to update academic programs that provide a good education in buildings that are not falling apart rather then indulge in 50s dreams of sports as the only solution. Low enrollments show the futility of such an attitude.
DeleteYes student activities removed from the old drink culture or Halloween that became a destructive drunken riot are important. Yet education with good working facilities is key here, not the dreams of old men who still think that sports is the answer to the lack of enrollment and spend money on it like drunken sailors. I assume that the 50% "who stopped eating there" will not cite sports but rather poor educational facilities and lack of freedom of speech that the recent F.I.R.E College rankings have awarded SIUC an F and placed it one level before the bottom of the barrel.