Update, since we now have real numbers and not projections. It’s shocking…
The University of Missouri in the fall will have the smallest class of new college students since 2006, according to the latest projections that show the loss of new enrollments could be as much as 50 percent higher than previous forecasts.
The decline comes after a year of unprecedented national and international attention on MU, brought on by campus protests, graduate assistant employment issues, faculty dissension and administrative infighting.
As of last week, 4,738 students had paid a deposit of $300, which was refundable through Sunday, according to a memo from Barbara Rupp, interim vice provost for enrollment management. That is a 22.3 percent decline from this year’s total of 6,191 freshmen. It’s the smallest class since fall 2006, when MU enrolled 4,838 new freshmen out of a total student body of 28,253. This year’s total enrollment is 35,448.
In each of the past four years, the number of new freshmen who enroll in the fall has been within 100 of the May 1 paid deposits.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/education/turmoil_at_mu/university-of-missouri-freshman-class-likely-to-be-smallest-since/article_753c23ae-d781-5fa6-a246-392f3c20f274.html
That’s a potential lost of over 1,400 new freshmen. They also saw a drop in transfer students and graduate student applications (749 fewer applications).