Northwestern State University of Louisiana is experiencing an enrollment decline for the Fall 2023 semester due to a significant decrease in the retention of current students.
Marcus Jones, president of NSU, believes this issue is related to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When COVID started in 2020, the admissions standards were relaxed, so we were able to admit students who did not necessarily meet the admission requirements,” Jones said. “As a result of that we’re seeing, for some of those students who were weaker students, it has been difficult for universities to retain those students.”
Jones, along with all the faculty on campus, are actively working to resolve low retention rates through beneficial initiatives to offer help to any student who needs it.
“It was never an attempt to lower standards, it was an attempt to help all students who wanted to come to college, go,” Jones said.
The main two things that impact students’ desire or ability to return and persist are finances and academics, Jones said.
“Academically we’re engaging in a lot of intrusive advising to make sure we catch students that are potentially in a position where they may not do what they need to remain in school. Then financially we have some of the best scholarships and safety net financial programs to assist students on the retention side,” Jones said.
NSU has also supported initiatives such as the Demon Mentor Network Program, which has begun specific advising to watch and aid students who may be at high risk.
Jones personally supports the construction of Alost Hall, the academic center planned to substitute John S. Kyser Hall as the largest academic building, which will also play a major role in increasing enrollment.
“It’s going to be a state of the art, 73,000 square foot building that will provide all that an incoming student would expect and deserves in an academic building. I think that’s gonna be a game changer for us,” Jones said.
Though retention of current students is decreasing, NSU has seen an increase in enrollment of first-time freshmen. The Fall 2022 semester had 968 first-time freshmen, compared to the Fall 2023 semester with a projected 1,100 first-time freshmen. NSU has seen an increase of about 13%.
Jones stresses the importance of recruitment as well as retention efforts beyond just focusing on traditional students. “If an institution is going to sustain itself, it has to look beyond just high school graduates as potential students, so we’re looking at every avenue possible to get students in,” Jones said.
Jones has been focusing more attention on students that complete dual enrollment courses with NSU by offering scholarships to those that enroll as full-time students after.
NSU has welcomed roughly 30 new international students and welcomed back many online students.
“Getting out of COVID and sort of getting to the point where we’re sort of back to normal, if I can say, that’s why I think that going back to sort of where we were pre-COVID numbers with the face-to-face piece,” Jones said.
Despite the decrease in enrollment many have not noticed a decline within their circles.
“I’ve seen some of the highest recruitment rates in a lot of extracurriculars, specifically in ROTC,” Loren Higginbotham, senior business major, said. “There’s not really an increase or decrease in classes either, it just seems steady.”
Allie Denton, junior radiologic science major, did not notice the enrollment decline due to traffic and parking lot issues on campus.
“Honestly I have not noticed the enrollment decline this year, the parking lots are always packed and traffic can get pretty bad,” Denton said.
Wesley Harell, University Police captain, has also seen the increase of on-campus students through traffic and parking lot incidents.
“Right now I think we’re back on an average semester pre-COVID of parking lot accidents, we’ve already seen a few in the first few weeks of school,” Harell said.
Harell and Jones agreed that there has been an increase in on-campus students.
“I don’t think that you’re going to find an institution, especially in our system, that does a better job of finding resources to assist incoming students and continuing students. I don’t know that we’ll ever get 100 percent back, but I do think that we are seeing more students now who are on campus,” Jones said.
