Enrollment increases at YSU for first time in 5 years

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

It’s only 41 more students, but it’s the first enrollment increase Youngstown State University has seen in five years.

YSU reported 12,361 students enrolled for spring semester, up 0.33 percent or 41 students from spring 2015 semester’s 12,320 students.

It’s the first semester-to-semester increase since spring 2011.

“We had gone 15 consecutive semesters, from one to the next, year to year, enrollment went down,” YSU President Jim Tressel said Tuesday morning on Vindy Talk Radio.

“So, for instance, if you’re talking fall to fall or spring to spring, that type of thing. And we were really hoping this past fall we’d break that downward trajectory and we ended up, I think, 80 people down. The year before, we were like 500 people down, so I mean it was a win, but it wasn’t as decisive a win as we had wanted.”

The university saw a four-year, 17 percent loss in enrollment during those down years, he said.

That trajectory changed for this semester, though, Tressel said.

Gary Swegan, associate vice president for enrollment planning and management, said in a news release that YSU has worked over the past two years to create a comprehensive and sustainable enrollment infrastructure “that we believe provides a foundation for the continued growth of our student population.”

YSU also expects to see an increase in fall 2016 enrollment, he said. That’s a number that’s been declining since 2010.

Last year, the university hired Royall & Co. of Richmond, Va., a direct marketing student recruitment company, to help bolster enrollment.

Last year’s cost was about $300,000.

YSU extended the contract for another year and added recruitment of high school juniors and seniors to the company’s recruitment targets.

This year’s cost is about $500,000.

Last year, Tressel generated the amount paid to Royal through fundraising.

This year though, the cost was built into the university’s budget.

Total enrollment was down 0.7 percent fall 2015 semester, the university experienced a 13.5 percent increase in the number of freshmen, a 20 percent increase in the number of new students (freshmen, transfer, graduate and dual enrollment students) and a significant increase in freshman-to-sophomore retention.

The university also reported a freshman class with more out-of-state, minority and honor students.

Swegan believes the combination of YSU’s programs and relatively low cost – the lowest tuition among Ohio’s largest public comprehensive universities – is increasingly attractive to students.

“With our quality academic offerings and extensive scholarship and financial aid opportunities, we believe YSU provides the best higher education value in the region,” he said.