The University of Idaho’s undergraduate student enrollment has declined in line with statewide trends, the university announced in a press release Friday.
Both fall overall student enrollment and resident undergraduate enrollment have declined from last fall. Student enrollment dipped 2.6 percent, from 12,153 students last fall to 11,841 students this fall, while resident undergraduate enrollment dropped 3.7 percent from 5,779 last fall to 5,565 students this fall. Non-resident undergraduate enrollment remained at 1,963, according to the release.
The release said the trend of declining enrollment in first-year resident students represents a nine-year trend found in other Idaho public four-year colleges, citing data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Student retention at UI “remained steady,” the release noted, at 81 percent compared to 82 percent last year and 77 percent in 2016.
“We have made many positive changes to our overall student recruitment processes over the past year and while we are disappointed these improvements have not immediately resulted in an increase in enrollment, we recognize we need to stay the course and continue moving forward until the changes take hold and yield results,” UI President Chuck Staben said in the release. “We know we are making progress in key areas, including retaining the students who are already part of the Vandal Family.”
Enrollment with students participating in the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) increased 55.4 percent to a total of 724. The scholarship program reduces out-of-state tuition to 150 percent of the in-state rate for students. Last year, UI began offering the scholarship to include all 16 states in the exchange.
Also noted in the announcement were increases in undergraduate enrollment of underrepresented students. Enrollment of Native Americans rose 25 percent and of Hispanics rose 1 percent from last year.
Dean Kahler, vice provost for strategic enrollment management, said the enrollment figures show progress in several areas, such as in enrollment of underrepresented students, rises in high schoolers enrolled in dual-credit courses with UI, WUE enrollment spikes, increases for graduate and law enrollment and steady retention rates.
“Some of our things are working — we just need to get more traction in other areas,” Kahler said.
The enrollment figures come from an Oct. 15 census of campus students, he said. Those numbers will become available online on the University of Idaho’s website page for institutional effectiveness and accreditation in two to three weeks, said Dale Pietrzak, director of institutional effectiveness and accreditation at UI.
Kyle Pfannenstiel can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @pfannyyy.