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YSU enrollment falls 4 percent from spring ’14
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown State University’s spring enrollment dropped 4 percent this semester compared with spring 2014, the fourth-straight spring in which the school has had a decline in student population.
But Ron Cole, a YSU spokesman, said the drop might be a positive sign.
YSU’s fall 2014 enrollment was a 6.3 percent decline from fall 2013.
“We anticipated a spring 2015 enrollment decline of about the same magnitude [as fall 2014] since spring enrollment traditionally follows fall,” Cole said.
“The fact we are down 4 percent for the spring is an indicator that we may be on the track to begin to stabilize our enrollment situation,” he added.
There are 12,315 YSU students this semester compared with 12,823 in spring 2014.
“It’s more students than we budgeted for” in terms of full-time equivalent students, the spokesman said.
Since 2011, spring enrollment at YSU has declined 13.6 percent.
This semester’s enrollment is 236 fewer students than the 12,551 who attended YSU in the fall 2014 semester.
“Looking to fall 2015, there are several positive indicators, including significant increases in applications, students accepted and students who have registered for orientation,” Cole said.
While acknowledging “there is work left to be done,” Cole said, “Our hope is that we will have a large number of new, incoming students in fall 2015. With that, we are anticipating that our overall enrollment, after four years of decline, will begin to stabilize in the fall 2015 semester.”
The university has mounted several efforts to stem the enrollment drop.
YSU hired Royall & Company of Richmond, Va., a direct-marketing student-recruitment company, on a one-year $300,000 contract to help. President Jim Tressel generated that money through fundraising. It didn’t come out of the general fund.
More scholarships also are available in an effort to attract more students.
The fall semester marked the effective date for YSU’s changing from an open-enrollment to an open-access university, so the incoming freshman class of 2014 was smaller.
But the administration has been touting the higher academics of those freshmen who have an average grade point of 3.12, compared with 2.97 in 2013. The average ACT score of those students is 21.05, compared with 20.48 last year.