Update (kinda) on specifics of decline in enrollment:
Interim Chancellor Hank Foley spoke today at a meeting and said that out of the projected 1,500 decline, 800-900 are attributed to lower MO graduates, 500-600 are thought to be because IL is a big feeder state but recently a lot of their schools have made entrance standards easier/made their schools affordable and students are choosing IL schools, and ~600 is from disinterest after the fall.
I know a lot of people have said it’s completely due to the fall and that the admissions office is trying to spin their own narrative, but if you look at the numbers of the state, it makes sense that some is from a general decline in high school grads. Plus, this year’s freshman class had fewer students than last year’s, so that also falls in line with that part of what Foley said.
As a journalism student, I’m not a 100% believer in saying, “The media did terribly at portraying Mizzou and is making it seem worse than it is,” because I’d like to think some journalists did a good job covering it. At the same time, some people seem to think that there’s complete chaos on campus and that’s completely untrue. I think that objectively, the administration is doing a good job moving forward, and you can’t expect everything to be completely back to normal. Whether people believe mistakes were made in the fall or not, what’s done is done, and with new administration, now we just have to give it time.