Southern’s new census, released Sept. 4, reveals that enrollment has dropped since last school year.
Last year the total number of students, undergraduate and graduate, was 3,035, and this year’s numbers show that the total number dropped to 2,942.
So how does the enrollment decrease affect students? Glenn Carter, associate vice president of Student Finance, said that no matter what happens to enrollment numbers, scholarship opportunities are still the same.
“A reduction in numbers doesn’t mean a reduction in financial aid,” Carter said.
Departments are also affected by enrollment dropping. Some have fewer students in their classes. Budgets for each department are also affected.
Brent Hamstra, dean of the chemistry department, said, “This may have an effect on course scheduling down the road if we end up with fewer students in upper-division courses in future years, and we will need to evaluate how we will respond to the effects of lower enrollments on our budgets and budget priorities in the short and long term. We are also looking at how we as a department can be more effectively involved in the process of recruiting students who are interested in degrees and careers in chemistry.”
Other departments, such as nursing and physics and engineering, remained stable, despite the overall decline in students.
Chris Hansen, dean of the physics and engineering department, said, “Our enrollment is about the same or slightly higher.”
Barbara James, dean of the nursing department, said, “We are full and busy and have numerous inquiries about our program each day (more than 600 from the website alone in the past year).”
Southern also released it’s demographic numbers by race during the census: Fourty-six percent of the student population is white (non-Hispanic), 23.5 percent of students are Hispanic, 12.3 percent of students are Asian, 10.97 percent of students are black or African-American, 5.8 percent of students are two or more races, 0.8 percent of students are Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 0.2 percent of students are American/Alaska Native.
Image credit: Barry Daly