Spring numbers increase
Chris Coplan - February 21st, 2008With the beginning of the spring 2008 semester, NAU marks its highest spring enrollment in the university’s history.
Spring 2008 enrollment totaled at 20,224 students at the Mountain Campus and other sites including NAU-Yuma and NAU-North Valley. This was nearly 6 percent higher than spring 2007’s 19,095 students, with 12,859 at the Flagstaff campus, and an additional 4,418 enrolled throughout the state.
In the interim of fall and spring semesters enrollment numbers usually decrease, but the spring semester continued fall 2007’s increased enrollment where the university saw a record-breaking 21,352 students.
Graduate student enrollment increased by 7.9 percent, up to 14,513 from spring 2007’s 13,453 students.
NAU President John D. Haeger said this increase proves NAU is successfully interacting with students.
“This indicates we’ve been successful in getting the word out,” Haeger said. “Student enrollment has just been doing a spectacular job.”
David Bousquet, vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, said although the increases please university officials, they had seen it coming.
“The spring enrollment increase did not come as a surprise,” Bousquet said. “Spring enrollment typically follows as a percentage of the previous fall’s enrollment.”
NAU’s overall undergraduate population saw a 7.9 percent increase, with the various student categories, including white, black and Latino, seeing a boost in enrollment. The only population that seemingly decreased were Native Americans, with a 1.5 percent decrease.
“Any decrease in Native American enrollment warrants attention,” Bousquet said. “However, a decrease of 1.5 percent is not cause for alarm.”
Lisa Nelson, director of the office of public affairs, said 1.5 percent is only 18 students, adding that looking at the number, and not a percentage, gives perspective in looking at student population decreases.
Fred Hurst, vice president for distance learning, said NAU often provides classes for Native American students living on reservations throughout the state.
Hurst said in the past NAU has lost students to other universities offering grants because, as Hurst said, “it’s hard to compete with free.”
Despite significant student gains occurring each year, Bousquet said there is no stress to continue to grow the university’s number of enrolled students, at least for the foreseeable future.
“There is no pressure to continue generating record breaking enrollments,” Bousquet said. “The expectation and the assignment calls for us to recapture the undergraduate enrollment lost on the Flagstaff campus over an 8-10 year period.”
Online and distance learning are the latest efforts to increase the student body, which Bousquet said is an integral part of the university’s enrollment strategy.
Hurst said the spring semester brought a 32 percent increase in online courses, something which Hurst said his colleagues at other universities find “pretty phenomenal.”
Spring 2008 saw an increase of 573 online students, to a total of 2,339. In terms of distance learning facilities, there was only a 2 percent increase in the number of students enrolled at one of NAU’s 30 state sites.
Hurst said online and distance learning will continue to play a pivotal role in enrollment increases as the number of graduates who change jobs through their life will require more education and cannot leave jobs and family to return to the Mountain Campus.
Besides illustrating NAU’s success and the particular strengths and weaknesses of its enrollment strategies, enrollment increases can garner NAU more tuition money and state appropriations.
“Enrollment growth helps with revenue in two ways,” said Pat Haeuser, vice president for institutional effectiveness. “It increases our tuition revenue and our fall enrollment growth is used to calculate the enrollment growth that we can ask the state legislature in our budget request.”
Haeuser said last year’s enrollment increase brought in an extra $2.5 million in tuition than originally figured, with this year’s excess planned to reach a similar amount. The larger and more far-reaching gain for the university is enrollment growth funding from the state.
“Our record fall 2007 enrollment allowed us to request $6.6 million for next year’s budget,” Haeuser said. “We do not know if we will get that, but last year we received $4.4 million in state appropriations due to the fall 2006 enrollment growth.”
Regardless of whether increases continue or the university gains additional funding, Bousquet said the increase demonstrates to university officials that NAU is gaining awareness in what has been called a “Phoenix-centric” state.
“The increase speaks to increasing awareness among the citizens of Arizona and surrounding states of what’s here at Northern Arizona University,” Bousquet said. “A university located in one of the most beautiful locations in the U.S. and an institution that remains affordable and accessible.”