CSNbbs

SIU-C was once so successful it created SIU-E to expand its glory.

Now its creation might be its killer.

http://www.sj-r.com/news/20180506/siu-sy...over-funds

Quote:In 2000, fall enrollment at Edwardsville was 12,193 compared to 22,645 at Carbondale (excluding the School of Medicine in Springfield) — a difference of 10,452 students. In 2017, fall enrollment at Edwardsville was 13,796 compared to 14,184 at Carbondale — a difference of just 388.

Now the Illinois Legislature is mulling a bill to split the universities, which Edwardsville leaders are outspoken in supporting. SIUE Chancellor Randall Pembrook said the proposal would also shake up the state funding formula, potentially getting Edwardsville four times more than the $5 million they asked for from trustees

The legislative proposal awaits action in the Rules Committee. The Legislature’s spring session ends May 31. Hoffman said the bill could be revisited in the fall if no action is taken this term.

The bill is House Bill 5861.

What would be Edwardsville’s new (and much more marketable) name?

Is MVC hoping SIU gets closed down so they could just add Murray St?

How does this affect their possible FBS football teams. I hope Upper Iowa doesn’t move ahead of those schools in the Great Northern fantasy conferences.

SIU Carbondale has a really good academic reputation, won the I-AA title in 1983, have three Sweet 16's and before that they were a College Division I (rough equivalent to Division II) power in basketball and had some pretty good football teams at that level as well.

You can do everything right but if you are in an area suffering economically and losing population you are going to struggle.

(05-07-2018 10:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]SIU Carbondale has a really good academic reputation, won the I-AA title in 1983, have three Sweet 16's and before that they were a College Division I (rough equivalent to Division II) power in basketball and had some pretty good football teams at that level as well.

You can do everything right but if you are in an area suffering economically and losing population you are going to struggle.

The big overarching problem is that SIU Carbondale is having trouble attracting Chicago area kids and I’m not sure if it’s reversible. The same thing is occurring at Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois, too. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago - the Illinois directional schools used to get a solid contingent from the Chicago area since they were in-state schools that could provide a residential experience. Those kids are now increasingly heading to Illinois State and UIC in-state (which has been transitioning from commuter school to more residential) or out-of-state flagships with better national brand names. Meanwhile, SIU Edwardsville is taking a larger share of SIUC’s other main source of students in the St. Louis Metro East area. It’s a double whammy for SIUC. I do think SIUC having a medical school gives it a bit more of a buoy compared to the other directionals since that draws in more research funding compared to the others.

(05-07-2018 11:10 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 10:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]SIU Carbondale has a really good academic reputation, won the I-AA title in 1983, have three Sweet 16's and before that they were a College Division I (rough equivalent to Division II) power in basketball and had some pretty good football teams at that level as well.

You can do everything right but if you are in an area suffering economically and losing population you are going to struggle.

The big overarching problem is that SIU Carbondale is having trouble attracting Chicago area kids and I’m not sure if it’s reversible. The same thing is occurring at Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois, too. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago - the Illinois directional schools used to get a solid contingent from the Chicago area since they were in-state schools that could provide a residential experience. Those kids are now increasingly heading to Illinois State and UIC in-state (which has been transitioning from commuter school to more residential) or out-of-state flagships with better national brand names. Meanwhile, SIU Edwardsville is taking a larger share of SIUC’s other main source of students in the St. Louis Metro East area. It’s a double whammy for SIUC. I do think SIUC having a medical school gives it a bit more of a buoy compared to the other directionals since that draws in more research funding compared to the others.

Just went and looked it up, 15 hours in-state at SIU-Carbondale is $424 less than 15 hours at AState paying out-of-state. Tried to figure University of Arkansas but they have a weird "new Arkansan" program that lowers out-of-state tuition and I wasn't inclined to try to figure out how it worked.

Point being, there are likely quite a few schools outside of Illinois that can compete on price.

Only name changes I can think of are Southwestern Illinois University (which isn't much more marketable than SIUE) or merge them into the U of I system so they become Illinois-Edwardsville. Frankly it's probably time for a split to happen, Frank's take is spot-on.

Geographically at first glance Illinois is very well positioned with their public higher education school locations. The schools are almost perfectly positioned to the points on the compass and with a school in the middle as well.



But SIU, EIU and WIU are just far enough away (especially SIU) that the idea they are simple education options for Chicagoland students is probably more farfetched than most observers realize.

(05-08-2018 12:02 AM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 11:10 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 10:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]SIU Carbondale has a really good academic reputation, won the I-AA title in 1983, have three Sweet 16's and before that they were a College Division I (rough equivalent to Division II) power in basketball and had some pretty good football teams at that level as well.

You can do everything right but if you are in an area suffering economically and losing population you are going to struggle.

The big overarching problem is that SIU Carbondale is having trouble attracting Chicago area kids and I’m not sure if it’s reversible. The same thing is occurring at Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois, too. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago - the Illinois directional schools used to get a solid contingent from the Chicago area since they were in-state schools that could provide a residential experience. Those kids are now increasingly heading to Illinois State and UIC in-state (which has been transitioning from commuter school to more residential) or out-of-state flagships with better national brand names. Meanwhile, SIU Edwardsville is taking a larger share of SIUC’s other main source of students in the St. Louis Metro East area. It’s a double whammy for SIUC. I do think SIUC having a medical school gives it a bit more of a buoy compared to the other directionals since that draws in more research funding compared to the others.

Just went and looked it up, 15 hours in-state at SIU-Carbondale is $424 less than 15 hours at AState paying out-of-state. Tried to figure University of Arkansas but they have a weird "new Arkansan" program that lowers out-of-state tuition and I wasn't inclined to try to figure out how it worked.

Point being, there are likely quite a few schools outside of Illinois that can compete on price.

Yes, there are lots of schools outside of Illinois that are very intentionally competing on price. Missouri State offers a general tuition discount to Illinois residents and also has a merit program that essentially provide in-state tuition rates for a lot of students in the SIUC academic profile. Places like University of Missouri-St. Louis provide straight-up in-state tuition rates for Illinois residents. Even the University of Maine (!) provides a "flagship match" where Illinois residents pay the same tuition that they would have paid at the University of Illinois (with the intent not to compete with U of I for students, but rather pick off students that didn't get into U of I yet want to pay in-state rates).

Probably the best example of a more far flung school becoming a hot school for Chicago area students is Alabama, where its transparent merit program that makes its tuition competitive or even cheaper than in-state tuition at Illinois for a large swath of students.

In last year's class at our large suburban Chicago public high school (3000 students overall) and a place that's a hot spot for college recruiters, they put out a list of 30 colleges where 4 or more of their graduates have matriculated. The top two schools were the University of Illinois flagship and College of DuPage (the local community college), which has been typical for many years. However, after that, only two other in-state public universities had more than 4 grads matriculate: Illinois State and UIC. There were NO Illinois directional schools on that list, which must be terrifying to such schools because this is a Prime A target in-state suburban high school where they used to draw lots of kids. Meanwhile, here are all of the out-of-state public schools that drew more than 4 students:

Iowa
Indiana
Iowa State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Purdue
UC-Berkeley
Alabama
Colorado
Michigan
Missouri
Wisconsin-Whitewater
Ohio State
Miami (Ohio)
Kentucky

I just listed out the out-of-state public schools - there is a slew of private universities on this list, too. It's standard to see neighboring Big Ten schools plus Mizzou on the list while Berkeley and Michigan are drawing Ivy-level-type students. Alabama is drawing a lot of kids with its merit awards and Colorado is popular for its location. However, it's pretty insane that UW-Whitewater is on this list but NONE of the Illinois directional schools are here. It's shocking that Northern Illinois isn't on here since it's less than an hour away, so it's not even a matter of distance. When a suburban Chicago high school class of 750 students doesn't send even 4 kids to any of the in-state directional schools (when that was a given even 10 years ago), that's telling. This is just one instance, but it's a data point that reflects the overall trend.

(05-07-2018 10:40 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote: [ -> ]How does this affect their possible FBS football teams. I hope Upper Iowa doesn’t move ahead of those schools in the Great Northern fantasy conferences.

Bawhahahahaha

(05-08-2018 08:11 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-08-2018 12:02 AM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 11:10 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 10:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]SIU Carbondale has a really good academic reputation, won the I-AA title in 1983, have three Sweet 16's and before that they were a College Division I (rough equivalent to Division II) power in basketball and had some pretty good football teams at that level as well.

You can do everything right but if you are in an area suffering economically and losing population you are going to struggle.

The big overarching problem is that SIU Carbondale is having trouble attracting Chicago area kids and I’m not sure if it’s reversible. The same thing is occurring at Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois, too. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago - the Illinois directional schools used to get a solid contingent from the Chicago area since they were in-state schools that could provide a residential experience. Those kids are now increasingly heading to Illinois State and UIC in-state (which has been transitioning from commuter school to more residential) or out-of-state flagships with better national brand names. Meanwhile, SIU Edwardsville is taking a larger share of SIUC’s other main source of students in the St. Louis Metro East area. It’s a double whammy for SIUC. I do think SIUC having a medical school gives it a bit more of a buoy compared to the other directionals since that draws in more research funding compared to the others.

Just went and looked it up, 15 hours in-state at SIU-Carbondale is $424 less than 15 hours at AState paying out-of-state. Tried to figure University of Arkansas but they have a weird "new Arkansan" program that lowers out-of-state tuition and I wasn't inclined to try to figure out how it worked.

Point being, there are likely quite a few schools outside of Illinois that can compete on price.

Yes, there are lots of schools outside of Illinois that are very intentionally competing on price. Missouri State offers a general tuition discount to Illinois residents and also has a merit program that essentially provide in-state tuition rates for a lot of students in the SIUC academic profile. Places like University of Missouri-St. Louis provide straight-up in-state tuition rates for Illinois residents. Even the University of Maine (!) provides a "flagship match" where Illinois residents pay the same tuition that they would have paid at the University of Illinois (with the intent not to compete with U of I for students, but rather pick off students that didn't get into U of I yet want to pay in-state rates).

Probably the best example of a more far flung school becoming a hot school for Chicago area students is Alabama, where its transparent merit program that makes its tuition competitive or even cheaper than in-state tuition at Illinois for a large swath of students.

In last year's class at our large suburban Chicago public high school (3000 students overall) and a place that's a hot spot for college recruiters, they put out a list of 30 colleges where 4 or more of their graduates have matriculated. The top two schools were the University of Illinois flagship and College of DuPage (the local community college), which has been typical for many years. However, after that, only two other in-state public universities had more than 4 grads matriculate: Illinois State and UIC. There were NO Illinois directional schools on that list, which must be terrifying to such schools because this is a Prime A target in-state suburban high school where they used to draw lots of kids. Meanwhile, here are all of the out-of-state public schools that drew more than 4 students:

Iowa
Indiana
Iowa State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Purdue
UC-Berkeley
Alabama
Colorado
Michigan
Missouri
Wisconsin-Whitewater
Ohio State
Miami (Ohio)
Kentucky

I just listed out the out-of-state public schools - there is a slew of private universities on this list, too. It's standard to see neighboring Big Ten schools plus Mizzou on the list while Berkeley and Michigan are drawing Ivy-level-type students. Alabama is drawing a lot of kids with its merit awards and Colorado is popular for its location. However, it's pretty insane that UW-Whitewater is on this list but NONE of the Illinois directional schools are here. It's shocking that Northern Illinois isn't on here since it's less than an hour away, so it's not even a matter of distance. When a suburban Chicago high school class of 750 students doesn't send even 4 kids to any of the in-state directional schools (when that was a given even 10 years ago), that's telling.

I remember my brother telling me that all his dorm/fraternity friends at Iowa were from Illinois. He said Illinois could only fit so many kids at their school, so Iowa got a huge chunk of them.
For those NIU fans who insist that NIU is almost part of Chicago.—this doesn’t bode well. These days, good young high school students seem embarrassed to go to a non Flagship public school. I don’t remember the directional label being such a disgrace 15, 20 years ago....

We lowered tution for Illinois students to attract more out of Metro East, which is the Illinois side of St. Louis. That used to be SIUs bread and butter.

(05-08-2018 08:11 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-08-2018 12:02 AM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 11:10 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-07-2018 10:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]SIU Carbondale has a really good academic reputation, won the I-AA title in 1983, have three Sweet 16's and before that they were a College Division I (rough equivalent to Division II) power in basketball and had some pretty good football teams at that level as well.

You can do everything right but if you are in an area suffering economically and losing population you are going to struggle.

The big overarching problem is that SIU Carbondale is having trouble attracting Chicago area kids and I’m not sure if it’s reversible. The same thing is occurring at Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois, too. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago - the Illinois directional schools used to get a solid contingent from the Chicago area since they were in-state schools that could provide a residential experience. Those kids are now increasingly heading to Illinois State and UIC in-state (which has been transitioning from commuter school to more residential) or out-of-state flagships with better national brand names. Meanwhile, SIU Edwardsville is taking a larger share of SIUC’s other main source of students in the St. Louis Metro East area. It’s a double whammy for SIUC. I do think SIUC having a medical school gives it a bit more of a buoy compared to the other directionals since that draws in more research funding compared to the others.

Just went and looked it up, 15 hours in-state at SIU-Carbondale is $424 less than 15 hours at AState paying out-of-state. Tried to figure University of Arkansas but they have a weird "new Arkansan" program that lowers out-of-state tuition and I wasn't inclined to try to figure out how it worked.

Point being, there are likely quite a few schools outside of Illinois that can compete on price.

Yes, there are lots of schools outside of Illinois that are very intentionally competing on price. Missouri State offers a general tuition discount to Illinois residents and also has a merit program that essentially provide in-state tuition rates for a lot of students in the SIUC academic profile. Places like University of Missouri-St. Louis provide straight-up in-state tuition rates for Illinois residents. Even the University of Maine (!) provides a "flagship match" where Illinois residents pay the same tuition that they would have paid at the University of Illinois (with the intent not to compete with U of I for students, but rather pick off students that didn't get into U of I yet want to pay in-state rates).

Probably the best example of a more far flung school becoming a hot school for Chicago area students is Alabama, where its transparent merit program that makes its tuition competitive or even cheaper than in-state tuition at Illinois for a large swath of students.

In last year's class at our large suburban Chicago public high school (3000 students overall) and a place that's a hot spot for college recruiters, they put out a list of 30 colleges where 4 or more of their graduates have matriculated. The top two schools were the University of Illinois flagship and College of DuPage (the local community college), which has been typical for many years. However, after that, only two other in-state public universities had more than 4 grads matriculate: Illinois State and UIC. There were NO Illinois directional schools on that list, which must be terrifying to such schools because this is a Prime A target in-state suburban high school where they used to draw lots of kids. Meanwhile, here are all of the out-of-state public schools that drew more than 4 students:

Iowa
Indiana
Iowa State
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Purdue
UC-Berkeley
Alabama
Colorado
Michigan
Missouri
Wisconsin-Whitewater
Ohio State
Miami (Ohio)
Kentucky

I just listed out the out-of-state public schools - there is a slew of private universities on this list, too. It's standard to see neighboring Big Ten schools plus Mizzou on the list while Berkeley and Michigan are drawing Ivy-level-type students. Alabama is drawing a lot of kids with its merit awards and Colorado is popular for its location. However, it's pretty insane that UW-Whitewater is on this list but NONE of the Illinois directional schools are here. It's shocking that Northern Illinois isn't on here since it's less than an hour away, so it's not even a matter of distance. When a suburban Chicago high school class of 750 students doesn't send even 4 kids to any of the in-state directional schools (when that was a given even 10 years ago), that's telling. This is just one instance, but it's a data point that reflects the overall trend.

I’ve seen more of the “Flagship match” stuff around the country. A cousin of mine from Denver couldn’t get into Colorado, and got a “Flagship match” to New Mexico. His sister ended up at Colorado St (a real good school) but he wanted to go to a University of __(insert state)__. The “Flagship match” loophole allowed him to do that.

(05-08-2018 08:28 AM)MissouriStateBears Wrote: [ -> ]We lowered tution for Illinois students to attract more out of Metro East, which is the Illinois side of St. Louis. That used to be SIUs bread and butter.

And Missouri State has historically done very well in St. Louis, so trying to push that across the river is very logical. Friend used to be a baseball assistant at AState and he says it isn't unusual to see Missouri State snag baseball players offered by Mizzou in St. Louis.

(05-08-2018 08:24 AM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]For those NIU fans who insist that NIU is almost part of Chicago.—this doesn’t bode well. These days, good young high school students seem embarrassed to go to a non Flagship public school. I don’t remember the directional label being such a disgrace 15, 20 years ago....

Word on the street is that up to half of all NIU students are commuters now, which makes sense in many ways because NIU is "almost part of Chicago" being on on the very edge of the Chicagoland definition.

Heck, in another 20 or 30 years DeKalb will be a suburb of Chicago as growth continues to push westward from Aurora.

But unfortunately the good that comes being 75 miles from the center of a major world city also means the problems that come with being a major world city can pretty easily make their way to DeKalb

We proud NIU alum are at a loss at what to do. The school has damn near tried everything.

(05-08-2018 08:37 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-08-2018 08:24 AM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]For those NIU fans who insist that NIU is almost part of Chicago.—this doesn’t bode well. These days, good young high school students seem embarrassed to go to a non Flagship public school. I don’t remember the directional label being such a disgrace 15, 20 years ago....

Word on the street is that up to half of all NIU students are commuters now, which makes sense in many ways because NIU is "almost part of Chicago" being on on the very edge of the Chicagoland definition.

Heck, in another 20 or 30 years DeKalb will be a suburb of Chicago as growth continues to push westward from Aurora.

But unfortunately the good that comes being 75 miles from the center of a major world city also means the problems that come with being a major world city can pretty easily make their way to DeKalb

We proud NIU alum are at a loss at what to do. The school has damn near tried everything.

I feel for you. 20 years ago I thought NIU was a school that was going to break out. Now I don’t know....some very good teams on the field but no local fan support.
How was local fan support 20 years ago at NIU compared to now?

(05-08-2018 08:37 AM)Lord Stanley Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-08-2018 08:24 AM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]For those NIU fans who insist that NIU is almost part of Chicago.—this doesn’t bode well. These days, good young high school students seem embarrassed to go to a non Flagship public school. I don’t remember the directional label being such a disgrace 15, 20 years ago....

Word on the street is that up to half of all NIU students are commuters now, which makes sense in many ways because NIU is "almost part of Chicago" being on on the very edge of the Chicagoland definition.

Heck, in another 20 or 30 years DeKalb will be a suburb of Chicago as growth continues to push westward from Aurora.

But unfortunately the good that comes being 75 miles from the center of a major world city also means the problems that come with being a major world city can pretty easily make their way to DeKalb

We proud NIU alum are at a loss at what to do. The school has damn near tried everything.

I have a lot of fondness for NIU. In the immediate term, I do think that tuition price is a big factor. U of Illinois definitely loses some kids to *lower* ranked out-of-state schools because of tuition pricing. So, when *higher* ranked out-of-state schools are offering tuition that's competitive with or even cheaper than the Illinois directionals, it becomes almost a no-brainer to go to the higher ranked out-of-state school. It used to be that going to NIU/EIU/WIU/SIU was a sliver of a cost of going to an out-of-state flagship, so they'd win a lot of kids just based on price, but that's now not the case.

In the long-term, the academic focus of the directional schools needs to change along with the branding (which, whether it's fair or not, means a lot in this business). As of now, there are 4 directional universities in the state that largely offer the same academic offerings with the same academic admissions standards. There really isn't a large differentiation between them other than their respective locations. That might have worked 20 years ago when the large Millennial generation was ushering in lots of college students, but that's not going to work with the post-Millennial generation that is a lot smaller in size.

I always liked how the Virginia public university system really has well-defined missions for each school as opposed to trying to shoehorn all of them to try to be all things to all people. UVA is the clear flagship, but William & Mary focuses on being a strong liberal arts school, Virginia Tech is a great engineering school, VCU has excellent fine arts programs, George Mason has public policy and international affairs programs that take advantage of its DC-area location, etc. There is simply a whole swath of options beyond the UVA flagship with each school having different programs and campus cultures.

The schools in the state of Missouri have actually done a good job of working toward the Virginia model over the past couple of decades by refocusing and rebranding Missouri-Rolla into Missouri S&T (to reflect its tech and engineering focus) and Southwest Missouri State into Truman State (to reflect that it's a more global liberal arts school). Note that the changes were both substantive (a focusing of specific academic offerings) and superficial (renaming the schools to make them sound less "local"). A superficial name change alone won't work - you need the substantive academic changes to be made, too.

NIU seems to be positioned to be a Virginia Tech/Missouri S&T-type school with its engineering and computer science programs. That's not to say that NIU should get rid of its liberal arts programs (as places like VT still have those offerings), but rather re-position itself as that being the new focus of the school. SIUC has the "bones" to be a STEM-focused school with its medical school and engineering program, too. It makes sense for NIU and SIUC to continue being more comprehensive research institutions in that regard. Meanwhile, EIU and WIU can become the more William & Mary/Truman State-type liberal arts-focused schools with a lot more undergrad-focused instruction as opposed to grad-level research.

I actually think this already reflects the general reality of the positions of those schools, but none of them do a great job in reflecting that in allocating their financial and academic resources while their branding to reflect such positions is non-existent (as they're all just lumped in as "directional schools"). Maybe have each school renamed after the 4 US presidents that came from Illinois (Lincoln, Grant, Reagan and Obama) at a superficial rebranding level and then show the marketplace how they're focused on STEM, liberal arts, etc. Prospective students need to be shown how these schools differentiate themselves in the marketplace on all levels (academic offerings, national branding and tuition pricing).

(05-08-2018 08:44 AM)billybobby777 Wrote: [ -> ]How was local fan support 20 years ago at NIU compared to now?

20 years ago is a generation now and prior to all the technology that keeps people engaged in other things besides college football games. And IMHO the university as a whole has missed some opportunities to engage students after the more recent Orange Bowl.

http://www.daily-chronicle.com/lists/201...xml?page=5

Mistakes have been made but there has been no misfired silver bullet. Example, better post-Orange Bowl marketing doesn't move the needle from 13k in the stands to 28k in the stands, no way.

Mainly it looks like NIU just has not / can not recover from the ESPN contracted midweek MAC games so attendance will rarely be over 13k but for marquee games every few years. Though we all have high hopes for the Utah at NIU home opener on Sept 8th to look like this:

(05-08-2018 08:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-08-2018 08:28 AM)MissouriStateBears Wrote: [ -> ]We lowered tution for Illinois students to attract more out of Metro East, which is the Illinois side of St. Louis. That used to be SIUs bread and butter.

And Missouri State has historically done very well in St. Louis, so trying to push that across the river is very logical. Friend used to be a baseball assistant at AState and he says it isn't unusual to see Missouri State snag baseball players offered by Mizzou in St. Louis.

Baseball and Volleyball have done extremely well in St. Louis recruiting. Baseball it helps you are recruiting into the home of the Cardinals minor league facility.

Also how the Missouri public universities are, most of them are on the western side of the state. The eastern side has fewer choices. Thus Missouri State does well in St. Louis.

I was reading an article in the local Carbondale IL newspaper webstie about the declining enrollment at SIU-C and on the right side of my screen pops up an advertisement for the Univ of Miami online program!! A sign of the times. Higher ed is changing.

More students are attending community colleges and saving 50% on tuition for their first 2 years- tuition and enrollment that would have gone to traditional 4 year schools. It's my observation that more students are willing to commute (if they can) and save about $11,000 (national avg) per year on room and board: that's almost $45,000 over 4 years. All these things are putting the squeeze on a fine school in a somewhat remote rural area.

Some interesting trends when looking at Iowa's public universities enrollment numbers

Iowa State University

ISU’s official fall 2016 enrollment is 36,660. In the last decade, overall enrollment at ISU has grown by 11,198 students, or 44 percent. ISU’s freshman class of 6,325 students includes 3,380 Iowans.


University of Iowa

Total enrollment at UI in 2016 is 33,334 students. 50 percent of the freshman class is from Iowa.


University of Northern Iowa

With total enrollment at 11,905, UNI officials did not meet their goal of 12,000 students. The university has seen an enrollment decline in recent years.

----

OK, so the one thing that really sticks out is Iowa State's enrollment went up a whopping 44% in one decade from 2006 to 2016.

Meanwhile, Northern Iowa's enrollment has gone down.

I wonder if other states have seen similar trends with flagship enrollment going up while directional school enrollment goes down.