The University of Minnesota Crookston’s fall enrollment is 1,839, up from 1,834 a year ago. On-Campus enrollment is for the fall is 784, which is down from 803 last fall. Online enrollment has reached a new high with 1,055 students enrolled on time, just the second time enrollment has topped 1,000 online students.
UMC Vice-Chancellor John Hoffman said enrollment is generally down throughout the region so UMC is thrilled to have met their targets. “We are thrilled about where we landed this,” said Hoffman. “The trends throughout the region in nearby states are that enrollments are down. Our enrollment is up. I have to give hats off to Mike Griffin, our new enrollment director, and some stellar work by Jessica Hanson and Janessa Quanrud in the work they did to bring things through and help us land ahead of targets for the year.”
UMC has been working on introducing new enrollment strategies aimed at enrolling a higher percentage of admitted students. Hoffman said about 12 to 13 percent of admitted students didn’t enroll at UMC in years past, this year the percentage of admitted students who didn’t enroll fell to six percent. “One of the things we did is put more attention on our yield rate meaning making sure the students who apply and are admitted end up coming to the University of Minnesota Crookston,” said Hoffman. “Over the past several years we talk about a summer melt where we lose 12 to 13 percent of admitted students who end up not coming to campus. This year it was six percent. We did that by spending more time and attention with our applicants, our admitted students helping them understand the path to college and how to be successful once they get here.”
UMC also announced in the spring that they would be transitioning to a new holistic review of a student and beginning in 2020 students would not have to take the ACT to be admitted to the school. Hoffman said that while the ACT was still required this year, the university still used their new holistic view of a student in the review process for incoming students this fall. “We started to implement the wholistic review this fall,” said Hoffman. “Looking ahead to the next class there will be no ACT required. We are focusing on what students do over four years in high school. We think that is going to tell us a lot more than what they do over four hours sitting in a classroom taking an exam for their ACT score. It looks more at character, work ethic, their experiences in and out of the classroom. It helps us to identify those students a lot of other colleges and universities are missing that thrive when they come to our campus.”
Another positive trend for the campus is a four percent increase in retention rate, the number of students who enrolled in fall 2018 who remain enrolled in fall 2019 said Hoffman. “I’m very excited about this,” said Hoffman. “We hired Dr. Lamesha Brown. She is living here in town, started this summer, and has hit the ground running for us. This is a completely reimagined student success center that we have on campus focused on helping retain students, help them graduate and graduate on-time. One of the best ways to grow your enrollment is to make sure you’re not losing any students you bring in for the fall. So, between a great class and an exciting new student success center, I think we’re positioned well to do some exciting things in that area as well.”
Included in the new enrollment strategies were increasing opportunities for student-athletes by adding Men’s and Women’s Cross Country, Trap Shooting, and with Men’s Hockey on tap for the future. Hoffman said in addition to providing more opportunities, the university is also focused on improving facilities both academically and athletically in the coming years. “We know it makes a difference for our students, our student-athletes when they come to campus and are making their choices about where to go to school,” said Hoffman. “We are working hard to provide the best whole experience for them – residence halls, athletic facilities, classroom facilities, a new lab we opened last year, we’ll be launching construction on another set of classrooms and research labs next summer. Good things are happening in terms of facilities that are going to help us to continue to grow the enrollment.”
In addition to meeting enrollment goals, UMC has also met their budget goals for the first time in several years which Hoffman says helps instill confidence with the Board of Regents about the direction of the campus. “We have worked very hard to be transparent about where our budget is at,” said Hoffman. “That’s communicating with faculty, staff, constituents about where we’re at and where we need to be. We’ve made some difficult decisions, but they position us so much better looking to the future. And, yes, system leadership when they see us on our campus making difficult decisions to position ourselves for growth both in terms of budget and enrollment that gives them confidence the investments that they make in the University of Minnesota Crookston are going to produce results. We’re going to keep pushing but we’ve done some really good work on that and the best is yet to come.”
Meeting goals is the first step in changing the trends at UMC is meeting the goals for 2019. Hoffman said that while it is still a little early to make projections and set goals for 2020, the university will be pushing for more growth. “We had a four percent increase in our retention rate this year,” said Hoffman. “We’re hoping to do nearly as much of an increase in retention for the coming year. For enrollment numbers were currently working through our projections. One of the great things we have is Sue Erickson, our Director of Institutional Effectiveness, is an amazing resource with the modeling she does with how we use our financial aid and how we engage our recruitment. I tell folks its kind of like doing precision agriculture but with enrollment management. It’s a little early to make our projections and set our goals for exactly where we’re going to land next year. But we’re going to be pushing for some more growth and continue to set those goals in ways we can continue to achieve them.”
