SIUC Enrollment

 SIUC's summer enrollment for 2025 is up 5% over that of 2024 and is up 15% over that of 2021. This marks 6 semesters in a row the university  has seen  enrollment increase. Enrollment this summer is 5264 is a far cry from the 9000 students Carbondale used to see during summer session . I remember how quiet people thought the town was with "only" 9000 students here.

Growth At SIUC

 The University announced a third straight semester of growth, adding 163 for a summer total of 5025 students which is still pretty anemic given the days when summer attendance averaged 9000. 

Last spring attendance was 10,525 and the university has a target of 15,000 by 2030, by my calculations about a 30% increase. Averaging a 5% increase per year which is about what the university has had during its recent years of increase, SIUC would reach 15000 by the 2031-2032 school year, one year behind its target.

Enrollment Up

 I guess any improvement is good but SIUC is making waaaay too much out of an increase in enrollement of 230 students. The univeristy for years has positioned small decreases as evicende that its new programs are "turning the tide" and the univeristy is about to "turn the corner". If those miniscule decreases didn't matter, than a 2.3% increase shouldn't either. Of course, since it is the most positive news about enrollment in a decade, I cannot blame the administration for trumpeting it but before they break their arm by patting themselves on the back, let's see what numbers are like in Fall of 2024.

SIUC Enrollment Up

 SIUC enrollment up about 2.3% or 252 more students, over fall 2022, at least so far. I have heard second hand that a number of students dropped out of the university this past weekend, maybe enough to wipe out that increase. I certainly hope not and, while I am certainly glad to see any increase, this 2.3% increase is comparable to the small decreases the unviversity saw in numbers over the past 30 years. Every year since 1990, student numbers dropped a tiny percentage, statitically tiny but it certainly added up over three decades. 

If the administration sees 2.5% increases in student numbers over the next three years or so, it has reason to pat itself on the back but a 2.3% increase is just staunching the bleedling, It will take 2-4 more years of similar numbers before SIUC can say its strategy to increase enrollment has worked.

Still a Decline

 However you want to spin it, spring enrollment is still down a bit over one percent from spring enrollment of 2021.. Fall may look good but we are not in fall yet and things could change before then. You have turned it around when enrollment numbers start going up and do so for several years in a row. One year is not enough to proclaim that implemented changes are working. The university has implemented changes for 20 years and ever time has said they are starting to work and they never have. Get some statistically significant numbers on the books and then claim you have turned the institution around.

SIUC Enrollment

 No official figures yet, as far as I have heard but scuttlebutt from some SIUC staff members says that attendance is down slightly from Fall 2021I would not be particularly suprised as Spring typcially has a slight decline from Fall.

SIUC Enrollment Down

 Once you get past the happy talk of the first three paragraphs, fall attenance at SIUC is down another 1% from last year or as the university puts it "essentailly flat". The problem is, the univeristy has seen this small declines in student population consistantly for over 2 decades and, while on their own, the drop in number is insignficant, taken in total the univeristy has seen a drop of about 14000 students over the past 20+ years.

SIUC Spring Attendance

 SIUC Spring attendance down 3.7% from spring 20202, although 85% of freshmen returned. Fall returns and applications are "promising" but they have been promising every year since 1991. Do I know how to fix it? No. I do think SIUC took advantage of a couple of factors to build growth that the university has proven unable to replicate today:

1. Long term vision--Delyte Morris headed the university for about 3 decades

2. GI Bill . The GI bill meant lots of returning vets could and did attended college and SIUC recruited lots of them.

3. International studnets--SIUC was an early recruiter of international students. Now every university goes after them

Empty Rentals

Article in Sunday's Southern looked at the state of rentals in the city. With 70% of housing in Carbondale in rental property, an estimated 30% of that remaining empty is pretty disheartening. A lot of them are up for sale too. A three building complex on East Grand sold for just over $1.5 million last July, Home Rentals appears to have over $9 million in properties listed for sale as a group and the owners of The Quadrangle complex have listed it for $2.6 million

The problem, of course, is that most of these properties were built for a time when the student population at SIUC hit over 24,000. Currently , there are only about 11,700 students enrolled this fall. From what I have heard, the new Evolve building in downtown has never managed more than a 60% occupancy rate and there are rumors of at least 2 more apartment complexes planned for the south side of town in the next couple of years.

Illinois University Enrollment Declines

SIUC is not the only university in the state of Illinois to post declines in enrollment. Save for UI Champaign and UI at Chicago, every public university in the state posted an enrollment drop. Maybe, instead of looking for outside saviours, SIUC's Board of Trustees ought to look at what those universities are doing and emulate which of their practices SIUC could adopt.

Incoming Freshmen

Just heard that the current projected number of incoming freshmen at SIUC this fall is around 900. Contrast that with just over 2100 in 2016 and just over 1700 last year. Hoping that number shifts higher as actual enrollment date gets closer.

Scary Numbers

A reader of the blog pointed out the following comment by Chancellor Montemagno in Thursday's Southern:

Montemagno pointed to the precipitous decline in SIUC’s enrollment and said next year’s freshman enrollment is projected to sink below 1,000 students.

From my reading of this, it means the university projects having less than 1000 new students, excluding transfers, next fall. That is scary. Unless we see lots of transfer students coming in, numbers like these do not bode well for the long term health of SIUC and by extension, Carbondale

SIUC Down Again

Attendance for the fall semester dropped below 15000 students , although the administration, working to put a positive spin on it, pointed out that this class has a higher average GPA than last year's class and that SIUC was attracting more transfer students. That is all well and good, but the institution still has fewer students than last year and no amount of spin will change that. I hope, with the new chancellor, Carbondale will see some long term strategies put into place to turn around this decline. Maybe, instead of going after students from the collar states, the university should work harder to make it the first choice of seniors in the southern Illinois region?

Illinois State Up

According to this article, enrollment at Illinois State is up 1.1%, compared to the 7.5 % decline at SIUC. Three other universities besides SIUC also expect declines in enrollment. While the state budget no doubt has a roll in the declines, I have to wonder why while Illinois State posted an increase when other state universities saw declines.

SIUC Drop in Enrollment

As the Southern reported, SIUC enrollment dropped about 4%, continuing a decline the university has seen since the early 90s, when it peaked at just over 24,000 students. Attendance is now about 30% off that point, but each year's drop has only been about 3-4%, not enough to cause concern on their own. It's only when you look at the cumulative total that the number becomes worrying.

A chunk of the problem is the lack of what George H. W. Bush called the "vision thing". With the possible exception of Walter Wendler, none of the chancellors at the university since Delyte Morris, has had a strong vision for where the university should go

Fall Enrollment at SIUC Up

Fall enrollment at SIUC up slightly, just a bit  over 2%  Total attendance is up 25 people but freshmen enrollment increased about 2.4% and transfers are up 2.3%. Still really too small to consider significant and, after 10 years of steady decline, 'twill need more than 1 year to show that the university has "turned the corner",

SIUC Turning the Corner

Caught on WSIU this morning that the university saw its lowest ever total enrollment last year, just under 18,000 total but President Randy Dunn says that the feeling is the university has turned the corner. As I have said before, the university has turned the corner so many times it is back at the starting line.

It is really not that hard to figure out what needs to be done to fix the university's problems:

1.  Hire the best instructors the university can afford
2. Raise the standard for admissions
3. Look for programs and degrees that are not offered or well served at other institutions and offer them.

It is easy for me to say what needs to be done, implementation is hard after 25+ years of chasing any and all students and trying to become another University of Illinois. Instead, focus on the things that brought the university to national renown from the 1940s through the 1970s.

SIUC Enrollment Down Again

As has been all over the local news, SIUC's fall enrollment is down again, this time by 970 student, roughly a 5% drop from last fall.  This is a pretty sizable hit, too big to get classified as just a variation from the mean.   Administrators blamed outside factors including:

amount of financial aid available to students, smaller graduating high school classes and drops in enrollment at local community colleges, from which a number of students transfer to SIU.

in other words, everything except the actions of the university.

SIUE up, SIUC down

Article in the Daily Republican (acutally a story pulled from SIU Media Services) compares the fall enrollment at both campuses. SIUE up about 1.2% whilst SIUC is down about 1.5%.

Transfer students are the one bright point for SIUC. Students are completing their sophomore years or getting Associate degrees elsewhere, then transferring to SIUC. Of course, you can't run a four year institution on the revenue generated by two years worth of students.

This is hardly a new trend. When I attended graduate school at SIUC in the 90's, I often heard from upperclass students that their guidance counselors encouraged them to attend a community college for thier first two years, then transfer to SIUC. Based on a conversation I had yesterday, that is still common among high-school guidance counselors in southern Illinois today.

SIUC Numbers

No official numbers out yet for fall enrollment at SIUC, though they are reportedly slightly down. If they were up, I"d bet we'd have seen official numbers a week ago, since SIUE and SEMO didn't seem to have any problem in getting them to the media.