Students around campus | Photo by Jessica Fugett | The Wright State Guardian
Wright State University’s (WSU) 14-day enrollment for the fall 2020 semester is up 12 percent of what was predicted. Programs such as the summer Jump Start program and Family Chats assisted in higher-than-predicted enrollment rates.
Family Chats and the Jump Start program
“Two of the biggest factors that professionals in the Division of Enrollment Management attribute to the enrollment this semester were the Family Chats that were hosted before the semester as well as the Jump Start program,” said WSU Director of Communications Seth Bauguess.
Along with the Family Chats, hosted by WSU President Sue Edwards, where she spent time answering any questions returning and potential students had regarding the university during the pandemic, the Jump Start Program also contributed to positive enrollment this semester.
“The Jump Start program was also a boon to fall enrollment as 80 students participated in a general education course during summer B term for free,” said Bauguess. “After that experience, 98% of those students went ahead and enrolled this fall.”
How students benefit from high enrollment
High enrollment not only benefits the university, but the students themselves as well.
“There is definitely a benefit to students when enrollment, and more specifically an incoming fall class is larger. Larger classes bring more student engagement on campus as well as a greater diversity of engagement from the student body,” said Bauguess. “Anytime Wright State can increase its student body the university community on the whole reaps the benefit of a greater diversity of thought and identity when we have more students.
Room for improvement
Although the 14-day enrollment rates for the 2020 fall semester are 12 percent higher than predicted, they show an 11 percent decline from last fall semester’s enrollment.
“Wright State University’s 14-day fall enrollment is 12,234. While 12,234 students is an improvement over the 10,700 students estimated to be enrolled for this year’s budget, however, it does represent an 11% decline from last fall and shows that the university still has work to do to stop the recent trend of enrollment declines,” said Bauguess.
The two demographics that WSU can improve on to increase their enrollment from semester to semester is incoming class size as well as transfer students.
“Areas for improvement include growing the size of our incoming classes as well as the number of transfer students. Both populations declined this fall in comparison to last fall,” said Bauguess. “However, there is good news in that the university has improved its retention of the students it already had enrolled. These factors have contributed to the result of a larger enrollment than budgeted but a smaller enrollment this fall in comparison to last fall.”
