Fall enrollment

[jackphd]

Expect good enrollment figures. How do I know? President Miller, in her last Fall welcome speech to faculty today, said it will be a record (she then joked: "That's a secret.&quot No numbers, and no official word, but we'll be in good shape again. It's pretty remarkable to keep setting enrollment records even as our traditional pool of high school students in the region shrinks dramatically.

[West_River_Jack]

Re: Fall enrollment

This is good news. Of course, the official numbers are several weeks away and I believe that they are officially realeased by the Board of Regents instead of the administration of each specific university.

[jackphd]

Re: Fall enrollment

This is good news. Of course, the official numbers are several weeks away and I believe that they are officially realeased by the Board of Regents instead of the administration of each specific university.

I think that's why President Miller said the information was "a secret". There were about 750 people in the room, though.

[thebluehatman]

Re: Fall enrollment

i will put money on enrollment being about 12,500 students and other takers on the enrollment for this year.

[Haldersham]

Re: Fall enrollment

I am not going to put a number out there but I believe 12,500 is not unrealistic. I have a niece who brought her son to SDSU this past Saturday. Her older Daughter just graduated from Duke. She told me that they paid the difference between scholarship money she got at DUKE and total cost.  The amount they paid annually to Duke is larger than what my grand nephew will currently pay at SDSU.

I think we can expect  that the out of state enrollement increases in the near future wil make up for the forcasted drop from instate pool of traditional South Dakota High schools students. Apparently SDSU is financially a bargin at this point in time and soon the word will get out.

Additional out of state students are a form of long term economic developement as some will stay after graduation if jobs are available.  This was not the case 40 years ago. I believe we have stepped up student recruiting in the more populated states to the east of Dakota and that too will help.

Unless we up our tuition significantly, SDSU is very much a bargin financially. Also my niece who happens to be an SDSU alum said she was very impressed with how the orientation process was conducted. Very organized and impressive. I told her that I think the Mid Con visiting group had drawn the same conclusion. President Miller no doubt is the driving force behind these things too. SDSU will get the recognition it deserves.

[jackphd]

Re: Fall enrollment

Not a chance for 12,500. It'll be within 100 of last year's record, I'd bet. Could be just a handful more, or a couple hundred. Staying steady is an accomplishment in these days with the dwindling pool of high school students. The trend is tough to buck, and if you can keep setting records, even in tiny increments, you're doing really well in this marketplace.

[MilwaukeeJacksAlum]

Re: Fall enrollment

This isn't meant as a direct knock against USD, but with a student body of approximately half of SDSU, how does USD going D1 really workout for the betterment of the state of SD? It's like when back in the late 80's - early 90's when everyone changed their names from College to University. Huron College was suddenly Huron University and we all know how that turned out.

[Haldersham]

Re: Fall enrollment

This isn't meant as a direct knock against USD, but with a student body of approximately half of SDSU, how does USD going D1 really workout for the betterment of the state of SD?  It's like when back in the late 80's - early 90's when everyone changed their names from College to University.  Huron College was suddenly Huron University and we all know how that turned out.

Keeping our enrollment at a level amount or a slight increase as Jackphd alluded to provides  a fixed amount of students fees for the athletic budget. The BOR put in place a policy that institutions under their control could not raise student activity fees for a move to D1 athletics. I would hope our BOR will apply this same policy to USD. So USD has no other option but to have an increase in enrollement in order to procure extra revenue for a move to D1. Increases at SDSU are bonus in that respect. So USD if they are going D1 in order to better SD, they need to generate the extra funds from their constitutents other than students. I believe they need some major gifts to make this happen. Al Neuharth is the primary one who comes to mind, but even though he once had a SoDak Sports weekly back about 1954, that went bankrupt, he does not seem very fired up about athletics and D1. Nor does he seem excited about making a major gift. I could be proven wrong, but so far not so. Al seems to have an ego trip with the ability to bring major media journalists back to Vermillion on Dakota Day. I think of Cokie Roberts, who  visited Vermillion on Dakota Day a few years back.
A taped version of her presentation was later shown on CSPAN. Guess what color she was wearing. She had a blue blazer with a yellow  skirt.  >Sometimes the staff can never get anything right. My guess is her staff looked up South Dakota and found the school colors for SDSU were yellow and blue and thought this make Cokie look very elegant.
Oh I digress. ;D

Back to topic, I don't know how SD will benefit from a USD move to D1. The leadership has to be as committed as Dr. Miller and Dr. Oien. They seem to want to make an internal study and I wonder how good of a blue print this study will be to follow. I am not knocking USD either, but they got a challenge ahead of them. They need to look at USD and do what is best for USD, and to stop worrying about what is going on at SDSU.

[el_presidente]

Re: Fall enrollment

11,100 students would be great. Last year we broke 11,000 to get 11,021. Last year our increase was 67 students. The enrollment number won't be set until next week when all the add/drop/transfering is done. Some students will drop out of school all together. My freshman year a guy on my floor came to school and couldn't affored textbooks so he dropped out and left. I don't remember his name since he was only here for two days. On the other side some students actuallly are still being admitted. My friend Jennifer showed up yesterday at 3 PM (classes start after 4 on Monday) and hadn't even been admitted into SDSU yet, no classes, no ID, etc. She just showed up. By 5 PM she was all set which doesn't surprise me considering the great staff we have here on campus.

Either way the number that matters the most is credit hours. USD's enrollment in graduate school is large because of business, med, law etc. However those students don't take as many credits (6 or 9 usually) as an SDSU Jackrabbit guarentee undergrad who takes at least 15. Athletic fees and everything else in SD is deteremined on a per credit hour basis.

[jackphd]

Re: Fall enrollment

Either way the number that matters the most is credit hours. USD's enrollment in graduate school is large because of business, med, law etc. However those students don't take as many credits (6 or 9 usually) as an SDSU Jackrabbit guarentee undergrad who takes at least 15. Athletic fees and everything else in SD is deteremined on a per credit hour basis.

Great point, el_presidente. The College of Arts & Science at SDSU alone teaches more credit hours than many other universities in the SD system. IMO credit hours are a much better measure, these days, of enrollment than the old head count (every student taking even one credit) or FTE (head count divided by credits in a full load.) With so many students working (many of them fulltime) they don't always take a full load, but they're degree-seeking students nonetheless. Credit hours helps get a handle on what kind of progress the university is making. And, by the way, we absolutely crush USD in credit hours taught.

No doubt USD has a lot of tough questions in their D1 consideration. How do they basically double their athletic budget? How do they add 27 scholarships in football given their already shaky Title IX situation? Where is all that money going to come from? That's a real question mark in their consideration of D1. I personally hope they go, but their money situation needs to be scrutinized closely. How much will they lean on their foundation and at what cost to student scholarships and other programmatic funding?

[jackmd]

Re: Fall enrollment

[quote author=el_presidente link=1156383618/0#8 date=1156882739]
No doubt USD has a lot of tough questions in their D1 consideration. How do they basically double their athletic budget? How do they add 27 scholarships in football given their already shaky Title IX situation? Where is all that money going to come from? That's a real question mark in their consideration of D1. I personally hope they go, but their money situation needs to be scrutinized closely. How much will they lean on their foundation and at what cost to student scholarships and other programmatic funding?

What is more interesting to me is the continued quality of incoming freshman as the enrollment grows. Instead of lowering standards and expectations we, as an institution, are raising them and still recruiting students.

As for USD, they have tough questions to answer and I hope the right people will listen when those questions are asked and responded to. It will take some courage to say the time isn't right and may never be right for a second DI school in eastern SD.

[jacksfaninne]

Re: Fall enrollment

Nagy said on KWSN when discussing how our enrollment compared to other Mid-Con members, that ours this year would be close to 12,000.

[jackphd]

Re: Fall enrollment

Nagy said on KWSN when discussing how our enrollment compared to other Mid-Con members, that ours this year would be close to 12,000.

That would be absolutely astounding. I hope so.

[jackmd]

Re: Fall enrollment

Is 11,501 close to 12,000. At USD attendance is handled this way. If 2,501 fans are at the game you round up to 3,000. If 2, 251 are at the dome its 2,500, etc...

Maybe Nagy has coyote syndrome? We will see.