MWSU reflects optimism on incoming enrollment data
Aug. 20—Missouri Western State University is forecasting growth in its earliest enrollment figures ahead of final data that will be available in September.
More than 600 freshmen are expected to be newly enrolled when classes resume next Wednesday, with the growth expected to come in at between 3% and 5%. Such progress has been hard to come by in recent years, with the university pulling out all the stops to reverse and recover from a trend of enrollment loss that was a key factor in the spring 2020 financial crisis. Melissa Mace, vice president of student affairs and enrollment management, explained these findings recently to the Board of Governors, who oversee the university, and elaborated on the situation Friday.
"What's so monumental about that is we've not seen an increase in the first-year freshman class since 2018," Mace said. "So we're pretty excited about it."
Missouri Western has traditionally been reliant on Buchanan County to source its student population, and it will continue to do so, but an expansion of its enrollment recruitment efforts elsewhere has proven prudent and necessary. This is in part because local high schools are producing progressively smaller class sizes and are expected to continue doing so. One example of the new strategy's outcome: The fall 2022 growth in Missouri Western freshmen recruits from Jackson County, the locus of Kansas City, Missouri, exceeds 60% over last year.
"We're focusing our attention not only in the immediate Buchanan County area but across the state of Missouri," Mace said. "So, we're doing a much better job of telling the Missouri Western story than maybe we've done in the past. And that's attracting students from different areas."
These early indicators give a preview of a given higher education campus' enrollment picture to a degree, but the meaningful data will only become available 20 days after the first day of the fall session, when administrators send reports to the U.S. Department of Education. For its part, Northwest Missouri State University continues to post strong early-semester numbers. Bearcats return to class nearly two weeks earlier than Griffons, and the day No. 1 Northwest headcount came in at 7,715. Among these, 1,115 are newly enrolled freshmen, the university said in a news release. An 80% freshmen retention rate is cited as a new record for the institution.
"Our enrollment growth is a reflection of the work of every employee, student, alumnus and stakeholder. To say that I am proud is an understatement," said Clarence Green, interim university president, as quoted in the news release. "Northwest is a special place that produces special people who care deeply and are invested in learning, connecting, practicing civility and showing their pride."
Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem
