Low enrollment could further budget woes
The university may be in an even tighter financial crunch with enrollment numbers down from the fall semester.
The total enrollment for the spring semester is10, 651, a little over 900 students fewer than the fall semester count of 11,630. This figure is also lower than the 12,000 students Eastern would like to maintain.
This may not be cause for concern because the spring semester is “a whole different animal” than the fall, said Brenda Major, the director of admissions. Most of the students enroll during the fall semester; therefore there are not huge numbers of enrollment.
However, it is still important to attract students to enroll in the spring, Major said. This is to counteract the number of students who graduated in December.
Despite being the middle of the school year, this semester there were 31 first-time incoming freshmen and 163 readmitted undergraduate students.
There were also higher numbers of transfer students. The number of students transferring from a community college was 316, making the total 1,463.
Of that total, 54 of those students came from other state institutions. This increase may be from a recent vote by the Board of Trustees to offer in-state tuition rates for prospective students from border states of Illinois on Nov. 19. Students from Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin now pay the in-state tuition rate.
The graduate school also received new students. There were 85 first-time graduate students from other colleges this semester. In addition, 38 of those graduate students received their undergraduate degrees from Eastern.
With Eastern relying on tuition money to make up the deficit from the state, this lower number is not good news for the administration.
The overall numbers are slightly down, but the spring numbers are not devastating, Major said. The total number of new students for the spring semester, including 141 international students and 38 readmitted graduate students totaled 868 students.
The higher number of students would mean more revenue for the school, Major said. However, with the lower number of students, Eastern has to find interesting ways to budget and provide the services for the students, she added.
Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-7942
