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Bradley Freshman Enrollment

when the economy is bad people look more to send their kids to state schools, so I think that benefited ISU the past several years -
But with those bigger classes, ISU got stung by the state's funding woes - so it has hurt them significantly -- it was actually a double whammy - more students to educate yet less money to do it with...
Thus ISU has scaled back, equipment purchases put on hold, hiring freezes, programs cut and some state schools had layoffs....etc...
The people at Chicago State claimed We no longer have any tissue, any additional cuts that we can cut," Chicago State University interim President Cecil B. Lucy said. "We are basically down to the bone. We have nothing more to give."
Several state schools including EIU (their President is Bradley's former Provost Dr. Davod Glassman) have had to lay off employees and teachers.
"Northeastern Illinois University prepares to shut down next week as 1,100 employees take five required furlough days and hundreds of student employees temporarily lose their jobs"

ISU's President said "...it will take years of hard work to reverse the damage that has been done."

He listed as "damage" - ".....pushing back timelines for bigger projects.....cuts in the right places, we have eliminated or left vacant more than 129 faculty jobs ... we had bills to pay left over from FY 16.......significant brain drain and your best faculty and staff abandon Illinois for more stable and predicatbale opportunities."

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/29/pf/college/illinois-budget-higher-education/index.html
 
ISU enrollment is down 8%.

"But the budget crisis casts a long shadow. This fall's incoming freshman class is estimated to be around 3,350 students. That's down from the 3,638 students in last fall's freshman class."

Source:

http://wglt.org/post/isus-fall-semester-starts-strong-numbers#stream/0

http://www.centralillinoisproud.com...-university-enrollment-stays-strong/805628800

The official fall enrollment numbers were calculated by the school after the 10th day of school. ISU saw only a slight decrease; 1.2% in total enrollment after one of the highest enrollment years in 2016. In 2016 the school had 21,039 students, this year the school has 20,784 students. Transfer student enrollment continues to remain strong as well.
 
ISU enrollment is down ...
...This fall's incoming freshman class is estimated to be around 3,350 ....


"Illinois State University welcomed 3,352 new freshmen to campus for the 2017-2018 academic year."
https://illinoisstate.edu/

Mikovio - I'd say that, as always, you were absolute correct, so don't let them intimidate you!

actually, it is rumored that the majority of the DROP in ISU's enrollment is accounted for by the ISU basketball players transferring elsewhere or being run off by Dan Muller.
 
Well we did get the full picture--

http://wglt.org/post/freshman-enrollment-falls-illinois-state-university#stream/0
ISU has 3,352 freshmen this fall, down 9.3 percent (or 342 fewer students) from fall 2016. ISU also saw an 11.7 percent decline in the number of new transfer students (239 fewer students).

ISU??™s overall enrollment??”including upperclassmen and graduate students??”remained relatively steady, despite recruiting pressures from out-of-state competitors and uncertainty about the state budget. ISU??™s total fall enrollment (20,784 students) is down 1.2 percent versus fall 2016 (21,039 students). One bright spot this fall was an overall 2.4 percent increase in graduate students??”the highest graduate student enrollment in the past three years.

So they took more grad students to mask the drop in freshman enrollment. The problem from a fiscal standpoint is freshmen will generally pay well over $10k out of pocket in tuition while these grad students often pay no tuition at all.
 
I don't think anything in this thread is meant to be against ISU - just the good news about the skyrocketing enrollment at Bradley ...
which goes against what's happening elsewhere - that the enrollment is declining a lot of other places in Illinois (as it has at ISU).

Gotta remember - the horrible tax situation is causing people to LEAVE Illinois in record numbers - so population is down, then there's unprecedented severe state budget and fiscal problems that force some campuses to layoff staff & teachers, raise tuition, and make it harder for prospective students to go there and the budget issues also trickle down to other PRIVATE schools.
 
SIU fell even harder in terms of total enrollment (presumably because they didn't boost grad enrollment):

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/loca...cle_8003f199-cf13-5ef6-8c53-e59afc3a7aff.html
Fall enrollment at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale showed a steeper drop in students, a decrease of nearly 9 percent compared to last year.

SIU Chancellor Carlo Montemagno said fall enrollment totals about 14,500, with the biggest decrease seen in the incoming freshman class: 408 fewer students than fall 2016.

I do think it's clever what ISU has done and would be interested to see how it impacts their budget. I've met a couple of ISU grad students enrolled this fall already and one said tuition was waived and she's being paid a stipend to go there. If they boosted grad enrollment as window dressing on the freshman and transfer drop that should hit them in the pocketbook. ISU doesn't have professional programs like law or med which are profitable.
 
...
ISU has 3,352 freshmen this fall, down 9.3 percent ...ISU also saw an 11.7 percent decline in the number of new transfer students ....

as expected, ISU is in enough trouble financially that they are asking for $150 million

"Illinois State Univ. Announces $150M Fundraising Campaign"

"Much has been written and said about the perilous financial situation of most state universities in Illinois. Not to mention the perilous financial situation of every other aspect of state government.

Illinois State University appears to be attempting to undertake at least some measure of fiscal independence.

.. The campaign is seeking private money to fund scholarships, leadership education and campus remodeling"

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...tate-univ-announces-150m-fundraising-campaign
 
Freshman enrollment is 1270!!
plus - new WEEK-TV interview with Dr. Gary Roberts
http://www.week.com/clip/13680876/full-interview-with-bradley-university-president-gary-roberts

well, back to BRADLEY's enrollment....

the final numbers are in - as there are always a few enrolled students that drop out or leave or some even possibly transfer in late within the first few days but ...

Bradley current freshman enrollment is 1270 (total enrollment 5,598) which represents a
WHOPPING 36% JUMP from the enrollment from 2 years ago (933) when Joanne Glasser was canned and Dr. Gary Roberts subsequently took over.

36% in just two years!!!!! - a figure that would have been unimaginable two years ago given the mess Bradley was in under Glasser.

Thank you Dr. Roberts & staff- and all this success was accomplished WITHOUT altering tuition or lowering academic standards for enrollment (which is how most colleges solve drops in enrollment but then that results ultimately in lower student performance and lowered graduation and placement rates, which hurts even worse down the road)
 
UPDATE...

after record setting freshman enrollment numbers last year -
Bradley set NEW records THIS YEAR - by accepting an INCOMING FRESHMAN CLASS with an average GPA of 3.76!!!
In other words- the GPA of the entire incoming class averages out to almost an "A"

The average ACT score for the incoming class is 25.58, almost a point higher than last year and also at near-record level.
(for comparison, the average ACT score at ISU is under 24 and at WIU it is just 21 and SIU it's just 22)

The overall numbers will end up being 1100-1120 in class size (compared to last year's 1265
and starkly contrasted with Joanne Glasser's last two disastrous years of 940 & 927)

Here's the track record of Bradley's freshman incoming class size:
Pre-2013: averages 1,050-1,075
2013: 1,080
2014: 940 (a disaster that prompted a gob of phony excuses and blame shifting by Dr. Glasser)
2015: 927 (then Joanne Glasser leaves at the end of the 2014-15 school year..and Dr. Roberts takes over as President)
2016: 1,100
2017: 1,265
2018: 1,120 (est.)

all is back to going well on the Hilltop thanks to Dr. Gary Roberts & staff and the great fans of Bradley basketball who were instrumental in getting the house cleaned in 2015 and the new staff brought in.
 
The new engineering building will be a plus in attracting new students. Brighter days are ahead on the Hilltop.

I would argue that those "brighter days" are already here. As tornado said above, Bradley has been hitting their targeted enrollment numbers each of the past three years... Higher numbers this year would have been counterproductive. It's possible, however, that the new business and engineering school may further increase Bradley's profile in attracting even higher quality students.
 
ISU just posted their 2018 enrollment numbers

overall enrollment is down from 20,784 in 2017 to 20,635 in 2018
Undergrad enrollment is down from 18,330 in 2017 to 18,107 in 2018
Freshman enrollment is up - 3.352 in 2017 to 3,689 in 2018
Average GPA of incoming freshmen 3.4
Average ACT score 24 (both numbers are unchanged from 2017)
 
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