Leatherneck Nation

WIU enrollment continues to decline.

From tonight's WGEM News:
http://www.wgem.com/story/39042909/2018 ... to-decline

WGEM story says trending downward for 10 years. When did Jackie get the job handed to him??? Direct corelation. Eastern was ready for last rites two years ago now they have had two years of increased enrollment while we continue to plummet!

LeatherCy wrote: Thu Sep 06, 2018 11:07 pm WGEM story says trending downward for 10 years. When did Jackie get the job handed to him??? Direct corelation. Eastern was ready for last rites two years ago now they have had two years of increased enrollment while we continue to plummet!

I've been tracking enrollment numbers for all the state schools for a while (and going back as far as I was able to find data for. Spreadsheet should show up at the bottom of this post, but I wanted to mention a few things about it.

Pretty much, what you'll find is that the directional schools (other than SIU-E) plus Chicago State have all been steadily decreasing for the last 8-10 years. Overall, since 2007, enrollment at all state universities combined has decreased ~0.84% every year, with 2% or higher decreases the last two years (not including this year yet, I don't have everyone's numbers)....which coincides with the budget stalemate. Even SIU-E, which had more years increasing than decreasing and was at one point up to 14.2k students saw drops the last three years totaling about 1k students (they're still bigger than SIU-C now though, because SIU-C has been dropping like a rock the last 6-7 years).

The last year that Western saw an increase was 2006, so yes, we have been decreasing for over 10 years. Part of that is the general trend of students choosing "flagship" schools over "directional" schools, but also because of the economy, people are more likely to pursue options that are either closer to home or cheaper (like a community college) for a couple of years before transferring to a 4-year school (or just deciding a 2-year associates is enough for what they want to do). Dr. Thomas has been president since 2011, so the decrease did start well before he took over, although I don't feel like he has done a great job "weathering the storm", especially in the last few years. I know that presidents Spencer and Goldfarb were aware of many of the problems that were coming (the ones that are able to be forecasted...smaller class sizes, some state financial problems), and did quite a bit to save money wherever possible in preparation for it. Honestly, I think one of the biggest problems with the current administration has been lack of transparency. It doesn't feel like they discuss options with the various stakeholders...a decision is made and it's just pushed through, regardless of other options that might be available.

Eastern still dropped last year (this year was the first actual increase for them), but their freshman class last year was larger than the previous year's freshman class and they did show an overall increase in the spring.

I included the numbers for the U of I system, but flagship universities are a different animal entirely (and have a much higher "profile"). They have much less funding (percentage-wise) that they get from the state, and much more from grants, research, donations, and their endowment. Hence, they are much more stable and more easily able to weather a multi-year budget crisis. UIC has their new law school and is located in a large urban environment. UIS is more similar to a school like WIU or EIU in terms of being smaller and more rural, and they've been up and down over the years.

So, was the decrease the fault of President Thomas?...no. I don't think he's done much to help our situation though, and has, in the process, created negative press for the university which has not helped us begin to rebound like some universities are starting to do (this is similar to SIU-C's situation).

The "system" schools are getting fat and sassy at the expense of the others. I think EIU has somewhat of a location advantage in this war because they are less than an hour away from the flagship. That could be worth several hundred students a year IMHO. Today, for example, if tickets and transportation were available, a prof at EIU could take his class on the road to see a former President speak.

Eastern Illinois University's enrollment is up. Here's how they did it.

From The Southern Illinoisan:
https://thesouthern.com/news/local/educ ... e-breaking

wiu712 wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 12:05 pm Eastern Illinois University's enrollment is up. Here's how they did it.

From The Southern Illinoisan:
https://thesouthern.com/news/local/educ ... e-breaking

Regarding this...

EIU advertises as far away as Chicago, Miller said, but got a significant enrollment bump from local students this year, thanks to improved marketing and community support.

I have heard that our local marketing is essentially zero. So....maybe that would be a good area for us to focus on.

I know our admission folks and university recruiters are not sitting on there hands. I also know that WIU also has advertisements etc. throughout the Chicagoland area. Just throwing that out before everyone piles on with "why aren't we doing this, and why aren't we doing that." I understand that our approach must change, but WIU is doing some of the things that it needs todo to right the ship! jc

Neckfansince71 wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:56 pm I know our admission folks and university recruiters are not sitting on there hands. I also know that WIU also has advertisements etc. throughout the Chicagoland area. Just throwing that out before everyone piles on with "why aren't we doing this, and why aren't we doing that." I understand that our approach must change, but WIU is doing some of the things that it needs todo to right the ship! jc

Wonderful job with data gathering, publishing, and analysis. If WIU is going to right the ship, the entire university family, including Macomb and alumni, have got to get behind the process. I honestly don't think we are there yet, but the pot is beginning to simmer and we will get there, maybe not as soon as we all would like, but we will certainly get there! jc

Neckfansince71 wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 4:04 pm

Neckfansince71 wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:56 pm I know our admission folks and university recruiters are not sitting on there hands. I also know that WIU also has advertisements etc. throughout the Chicagoland area. Just throwing that out before everyone piles on with "why aren't we doing this, and why aren't we doing that." I understand that our approach must change, but WIU is doing some of the things that it needs todo to right the ship! jc

Wonderful job with data gathering, publishing, and analysis. If WIU is going to right the ship, the entire university family, including Macomb and alumni, have got to get behind the process. I honestly don't think we are there yet, but the pot is beginning to simmer and we will get there, maybe not as soon as we all would like, but we will certainly get there! jc

I noticed that the university has been really pushing any good news (automatic acceptance system, no application fee if you're in our region, etc.) on social media and a lot of employees and people involved in the university (including myself) have been sharing them and pushing the info out to people we know. Hopefully that helps a bit too. If we can get through the next recruiting season without any more really bad news, I think we'll see a larger freshman class than we did this year. We might not be able to increase total enrollment quite yet, but if we can at stop the bleeding, that'd be a start.

wiu712 wrote: Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:59 am

RedNeck wrote: Wed Sep 05, 2018 8:23 pm934 Freshman sounds a lot better than the 800 number that was thrown around earlier.

Do we know if that number of 934 freshmen is the combined total (Macomb and QC), or is it just for the Macomb campus ???

If 934 is the combined freshmen total, the Macomb number may be closer to that 800 number that had been earlier predicted.

Doesn't QC mostly focus on upper division classes/students?