Enrollment reaches record numbers

SCSU has broken new grounds in terms of enrollment numbers.

By Oct. 16, enrollment rates reached 17,955, the largest student body in the history of SCSU.

The previous highest enrollment rate came in the year 1990 when the number rose to 17,096.

SCSU was founded in the year 1869 when the only building on campus was Stearns House.

Known as Third State Normal School at that point of time, SCSU became a university in 1975 and since then has gone onto become the second largest university in the state of Minnesota.

Compared to the data gathered, SCSU has experienced a growth of 4.5 percent in the number of students enrolled this year.

This spike in enrollment rates may help offset the university help to offset the SCSU budget deficit of $6 million.

This spike in enrollment rate can be a direct result of both the strategy laid out by the administration in their recruitment and retention efforts and also because of the economic recession, a time when the work force comes back to school to upgrade their skill sets.

Mahmoud Saffari, associate vice president for enrollment management since the year 2002, said it is a combination of both the factors, but more so because of the strategies and interventions SCSU put in place to recruit the students.

“We at admission office, with the help of new staff, new vision, have been able to present the university in the best possible way to our prospective students and parents. With the new leadership at the SCSU, comes new vision and accountability and as the figures show, we are on the right track,” Saffari said.

”It is exciting to see the enrollment growth and this is an exciting time for the university. When a student looks back at his years in SCSU, he should feel that the investment in SCSU was worth every penny.”

Saffari also said that some of the things a prospective student focuses on when looking for a college are the academics of that college, quality of student services, residential life and financial costs involved.

He said he thinks the numbers show that SCSU is doing well in all of these areas.

A segment that saw one of the greatest numbers of increases was in the number of students of color in SCSU.

Saffari said that since the year 2002, the number of students of color has gone up by a margin of 150 percent.

Saffari also said that the university has been placing recruitment adds in different languages such as Hmong and Spanish.
 
The only area where the university did not experience a positive growth was in the number of International Students coming to SCSU this year.

Lori Friedman, Director of Center for International Studies, said this may be because of the economic meltdown being experienced by countries throughout the world.

For students planning to come to United States for higher studies have to show to the American Consulate that they have the necessary financial resources to come and pay for their tuition and living expenses.