U of Illinois implemented a tuition freeze in 2015

Posted on: August 30, 2017 at 14:03:35 CT

which just happens to also coincide with our enrollment drop. The fact is we had been recruiting heavily from Chicagoland because UI had become inaffordable for many students who might otherwise have gotten in there. Chicago area had been the main driver of our enrollment growth overall. It's still manifested in how much Cubs gear you see around the Mizzou campus now. U of Illinois said publicly in 2015 that they realized they were losing lots of in-state students due to cost, so they decided to do something about it.

Don't get me wrong, the protests were a major factor. The idea that other factors would cause our enrollment to drop from 6k a year to 4k a year without the protests doesn't compute. 4k is the lowest we've ever been since 1999, and meanwhile a place like Iowa State is still rolling along adding new record enrollments every year and is at 36,000+ students and still growing. So while the U of Illinois tuition freeze would likely have resulted in a dip of our enrollment, you can't say it would have been such a huge dip that we should fall back to 1999 levels like we have. 50% of Iowa State's enrollment is coming from out of state and you know the bulk of that has to be from Illinois.

All of the neighboring flagship state schools except Mizzou are seeing enrollment growth this year, so you have to acknowledge that the PR ding due to the protests is a big piece of what is hurting us. But the good news is time and postive PR can heal that wound, and if it does, all indications are that continued enrollment growth as a flagship Midwestern university is still quite doable for any institution worth its salt.

Edited by McMuffin at 14:07:13 on 08/30/17