Emporia State University is reporting a drop in new student enrollment, but it’s pleased with record highs in student retention and graduation rates.
On Thursday, ESU announced a total enrollment of 5,615 students, which was down 3.7 percent from fall 2020. Undergraduate students were at just under 3,000, a decline of over 7 percent.
ESU Senior Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Jim Williams says a lot of students took a “gap year” because of coronavirus, which did not help enrollment as a whole.
On the other side, ESU had almost 2,700 graduate students, an increase of almost one percent from fall 202 and the university’s highest graduate enrollment on record. It also announced all-time highs for four-year and six-year graduation rates as well as record retention rates from sophomore to junior and junior to senior years.
ESU had growth in distance education, informatics, art therapy counseling, clinical counseling and several master’s degree programs like elementary education, information technology and business administration.
This may also have some impact on Emporia State’s ongoing budget conversations. ESU has been adjusting its budget after it had $2 million cut from its general use base budget and also dealt with an enrollment decline due to coronavirus. ESU is stretching almost $5 million in cuts to its base budget through June 2022 and it’s also cutting over $830,000 from auxiliary operating budgets.
9:45 am Thursday: Emporia State announces lower overall enrollment, but reports record numbers of graduate students and record retention
Emporia State University is reporting a drop in new student enrollment, but it’s pleased with record highs in student retention and graduation rates.
On Thursday, ESU announced a total Day 20 enrollment of 5,615 students, which was down 3.7 percent from fall 2020. Undergraduate students were at just under 3,000, a decline of over 7 percent.
On the other side, ESU had almost 2,700 graduate students, an increase of almost one percent from fall 2020 and the university’s highest graduate enrollment on record. It also announced all-time highs for four-year and six-year graduation rates as well as record retention rates from sophomore to junior and junior to senior years.
ESU Senior Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Jim Williams says a lot of students took a “gap year” because of coronavirus. That affected new student enrollment, and the record graduation rates also negatively affected this fall’s enrollment numbers.
ESU had growth in distance education, informatics, art therapy counseling, clinical counseling and several master’s degree programs like elementary education, information technology and business administration.
