Washington State University reported this week that fall enrollment dropped by 7.7% this semester, reflecting lingering effects of the global pandemic, a strong job market and other challenges to universities across the country.
Census figures at the University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College won’t be available until Oct. 15, which is the colleges’ official census day, university spokesmen said Friday. Logan Fowler of LCSC added, however, that new degree-seeking students were up 3.15% as of the 10th day of the fall semester. Dual credit registrations are still being processed, Fowler said.
According to a news release from WSU, the school’s fall 2022 systemwide enrollment is 27,539, a decrease of 2,305 students compared to last fall. This is the third consecutive year total enrollment has dipped at WSU, officials said.
Enrollment data was presented to members of the WSU Board of Regents Academic and Student Affairs Committee on Thursday. But there were some encouraging signs, including that the Pullman campus saw its number of first-year students increase for the first time in four years, from 3,305 last fall to 3,324 this semester.
Other satellite campuses saw small gains in various programs.
“While across the nation higher education faces significant enrollment challenges, at WSU we have retained 80% of the more than 6,300 students who started in the fall of 2021. All of our campuses are working together to attract, retain, and ultimately graduate the next generations of Cougs,” said WSU Provost and Executive Vice President Elizabeth Chilton.
Saichi Oba, vice provost for enrollment management, told the regents that WSU is focused on growing student enrollment in the years to come.
He added that nationally there are 1.3 million fewer college students today than before the pandemic.
“We understand the challenge that’s ahead of us, and we will meet that challenge,” Oba said.
WSU will also focus on increasing the number of transfer students bound to its campuses, a problem created by dramatic declines among regional community colleges that traditionally matriculate a large number of students to WSU campuses. WSU has several efforts underway to attract more transfer students, including on-site admissions at regional universities and employing transfer specialists at community colleges in western Washington.
