The best news was that NIU welcomed 1,852 new freshmen to campus for the 2017-18 academic year, an increase of nearly 3 percent over last year. There was also 2 percent growth in enrollment at the College of Law, 1 percent improvement in overall student retention and 20 percent jump in new doctoral students.
http://www.niutoday.info/2017/09/12/niu-...20hzS.dpbs
...Despite those gains, total enrollment on campus declined by 5 percent.
We sorely need enrollment to go back up. We had over 25,000 students when I went there. I can only imagine what a loss of 7-8,000 students since then does to the bottom line.
NIU fared well, but "total enrollment on campus declined by 5 percent".
My daughter had to choose a school for this year, and in the middle of the selection process, Illinois' budget negotiations were such a mess and so many cuts were planned, I didn't bat an eye when she said no to NIU. Even though her current school is costing me ALOT more, I recall feeling NIU, or any of the regional Illinois schools, was a bad idea....I pushed her to look at Ball State and Wisconsin schools, in large part as they are funded well (especially Wisconsin schools).
Thing is, even me, a NIU grad and supporter, got spooked away by that mess when it came to my kid. And ended up learning Wisconsin schools are a pretty good deal and funded. Not that she went there.
Here's to hoping for the best, a bigger rebound in the years to come, but man do I understand why enrollment is down all over in this state.
Advice:
You should look at the specific department a student is interested in at NIU....and not budget cuts...Many NIU departments are better than similar departments at a lot of Wisconsin schools....ask the specific department who is hiring their graduates and what salaries they are making before deciding to go elsewhere....
The top majors on campus are not being cut and will always exist due to their success in placing graduates........These departments "fund themselves".
The most impressive part is that NIU got a larger freshman class AND improved the academic profile of the class. It would've been easy to bring in more freshmen by lowering academic standards but that's not the case here.
Quote:Continuing a trend of improving academic profiles, the incoming class posted the highest mean grade-point average in more than a decade at 3.28.
(09-13-2017 11:20 AM)Max Power Wrote: [ -> ]ISU freshman enrollment is down 9.3 percent.
http://wglt.org/post/freshman-enrollment...y#stream/0
Surprising that NIU's jumped given the terrible budget climate.
It needs to be pointed out that ISU had three record freshmen classes in a row until this decrease. For the current year ISU added 3,352 new freshmen compared to our 1,852.
(09-13-2017 12:40 PM)niu79 Wrote: [ -> ] (09-13-2017 11:20 AM)Max Power Wrote: [ -> ]ISU freshman enrollment is down 9.3 percent.
http://wglt.org/post/freshman-enrollment...y#stream/0
Surprising that NIU's jumped given the terrible budget climate.
It needs to be pointed out that ISU had three record freshmen classes in a row until this decrease. For the current year ISU added 3,352 new freshmen compared to our 1,852.
don't burst our bubble with stupid numbers!
ISU's last "record" class was literally 6 more students than the year before, so their drop of 350 students this year is about 50 times that magnitude. But yeah they were doing well until this year. I chalked it (and SIU's big drop) up to the budget crisis but NIU's jump is perplexing to say the least. In terms of absolute freshman numbers NIU is always more grad and professional program heavy than ISU which pretty much just has MBA and an audiology degrees. Still got a ways to go but at least it's going in the right direction in a terrible climate.
Not to be a devils advocate, but our levels were so poor last year (and several years) that a slight tick up wasn't hard to do. We still have nearly half of ISUs freshmen number which is sad to me, when I was in college 15 years ago those numbers were reversed
(09-12-2017 09:09 PM)jjj Wrote: [ -> ]Advice:
You should look at the specific department a student is interested in at NIU....and not budget cuts...Many NIU departments are better than similar departments at a lot of Wisconsin schools....ask the specific department who is hiring their graduates and what salaries they are making before deciding to go elsewhere....
The top majors on campus are not being cut and will always exist due to their success in placing graduates........These departments "fund themselves".
There are solid statistics to support this premise. I was recently involved in a study on program costs at another higher ed institution in Illinois. We found that contrary to the common belief that higher enrollment leads to more profit for the institution, it is entirely dependent on the specific area of discipline. Higher enrollment in some programs actually create higher costs. Elimination of high cost programs, or introduction of higher fees associated with them, is necessary to controlling expenditures and balancing the budget. This has become critical since the drastic reduction in funding from the state of IL to higher ed.
... all in the wake of our glorious president and his "hijinx"
Well for some reason our school had a bad case of infatuation with all things Idaho. We kept playing Idaho in 1-for-1s (thanks Jiff) and got shafted on this last deal because they are now a 1-AA school. Then we went and hired Baker from there as well. In addition, Boise State beat us like a drum in a bowl game not too long ago. We should stay far away from anything Idaho.
UIC saw a jump in students, also.
UIC enrolled a record number of students at its campus this fall, continuing a three-year pattern. This is the result of significant increases in new freshmen (23%) and transfer students (12%), resulting in an overall 8.3% increase in the total number of undergraduate students on campus (19,448 from 17,959 in Fall 2016). Total enrollment for fall semester, including graduate and professional students, climbed to 30,539, up nearly 5% from last year’s 29,120 students. This is the first time UIC surpasses the 30,000 student mark in its history.
Freshman enrollment numbers are in and it looks like the Chicago area schools cleaned up this year, to downstate's detriment. Maybe there's more unease about the economy and more interest in commuting from home?
+73% jump at Chicago State (from 86 to 149 students)
+23% jump at UIC
+4% jump at NEIU
+3% jump at NIU
-1% drop at UIUC
-7% drop at UIS
-9% drop at ISU
-14% drop at EIU
-19% drop at SIU
-21% drop at WIU
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local...story.html
From the Chicago tribune:
NIU has 1,852 first-time freshmen this year, up 2.8 percent over last year and reversing a six-year downturn in that category. NEIU has 829 new freshmen, a 3.5 percent increase over last fall, according to preliminary data.
Even with those gains, overall enrollment fell at both schools: down 5 percent at NIU and 5.8 percent at NEIU.
But there is a prospect of a turnaround, Northeastern's interim president said.
Chicago State also grew its freshmen class this year—from 86 to 149—though total enrollment fell 11.4 percent from 3,578 to 3,171.
How can you maintain programs with 149 freshmen?
(09-12-2017 09:09 PM)jjj Wrote: [ -> ]Advice:
You should look at the specific department a student is interested in at NIU....and not budget cuts...Many NIU departments are better than similar departments at a lot of Wisconsin schools....ask the specific department who is hiring their graduates and what salaries they are making before deciding to go elsewhere....
The top majors on campus are not being cut and will always exist due to their success in placing graduates........These departments "fund themselves".
In the end, that's what occurred, she chose a school based on the program she thinks she wants to major in. But with a 17/18 year old, you want them to have good options to change their mind, and, a good overall experience (and not an experience of things like many recreation programs being cut, some departments being cut, building maintenance being deferred...that type of stuff).
I'm just finishing up an MAS in the COB. It is definitely one of the best departments at NIU, if not the best. The professors always blow smoke up our ass in class, saying things like large firms would rather hire a B student from NIU over a straight A student from UofI (#1 or 2 accounting department in the nation). I'm fairly confident my education is better than those of my counterparts at UIC, Loyola, DePaul, Iowa, Missouri (lol), any small private universities, etc.
Also, I learned this week to never read the facebook comments associated with Daily Chronicle articles. According to them, Toni Keller was killed by a gang of Chicago thugs, who constitute 50 percent of NIU's student population.
