East Central Reporter

After three years of positive spring enrollment growth at Eastern Illinois University, Eastern leaders are reporting a “negligible” dip in spring 2021 to spring 2022 enrollment. The 2.4 percent decrease follows a nearly 9 percent increase from 2018 through 2021.

“We’ve been very fortunate that the relationships we create with prospective and incoming students have helped us continue to grow through the pandemic,” said Josh Norman, associate vice president for Enrollment Management at EIU. “To know we are managing our enrollment in such a positive way against the challenge of the pandemic I think says so much about who we are as an institution and our deep commitment to our students.”

The 2.4 percent decrease represents a decrease of about 207 overall enrollments, Norman said. He cites a re-configuration of dual-credit course options in spring 2022 as the primary reason for the minor dip. He also noted that the spring 2022 decrease follows a 13 percent spike in enrollment growth last spring. According to official 10th-day data from the university, the university’s spring 2022 enrollment sits at 8,423 students.

“Without these purposeful modifications to our dual-credit offerings resulting in 207 less students enrolled, our overall enrollment in spring 2022 would have actually shown a small increase,” Norman said. “Our enrollment number this Spring positions us for additional incremental growth in the future, which our entire EIU team remains committed to.”

As part of that continued increase in enrollment, Norman shared several categories of growth in new incoming student populations from spring 2021 to spring 2022. They included:

• New transfer students: up 12.3 percent (representing 21 additional enrollments)
• New graduate students: up 65 percent (representing 143 additional enrollments)
• New international students: up 270 percent (representing 173 additional enrollments)

Aside from new student growth, EIU’s international student enrollment reached another all-time high of 577 students, representing 55 different countries. Graduate enrollment also reached a new milestone at 1,770 students enrolled—the highest graduate enrollment at EIU since 2008. New freshman and new transfer retention also remained stable and increased from fall 2021 to spring 2022.

Norman translated what this spring’s latest statistics mean for EIU’s enrollment strategies at a more general level.

“What the data continues to tell us is that EIU is doing a phenomenal job recruiting and retaining students from semester to semester and from year to year—even through a pandemic,” he said. Norman added that EIU’s steady enrollment speaks to EIU’s quality, responsiveness, and resourcefulness in meeting the dynamic needs of its students.

EIU’s official spring 2022 figures come from the university’s 10th-day enrollment reports. Tenth-day enrollment reports are the nationally accepted standard for tracking university and college enrollments. Several of EIU’s standalone 10th-day enrollment reports are individually processed and combined to create a comprehensive university enrollment report that, once complete in its entirety, will be available at https://www.eiu.edu/ir/tenth_day_enrollment.php.

For more information about EIU, and to learn more about its growing assortment of programs and services, visit the university’s website at www.eiu.edu, or call EIU’s public information office at (217) 581-7400.