Southern Illinois University Carbondale is anticipating level student enrollment for the fall semester.
The university wants to raise tuition 6% to help offset a potential $32-million Fiscal Year 2016 loss in state funding. That plan relies, in part, on level enrollment. This year the university struggled with a shortfall in enrollment revenue because of the number of scholarships utilized to help increase the number of students attending the university.
SIUC Acting Provost Susan Ford discussed the campus enrollment picture with Trustees during a meeting on March 18th. At that time, Ford said admissions and housing contracts were up over the same time period last year but was cautious as to how much: "I don't want to talk about how much its up because it's always fluid and you never know how many you're going to have until they show up for the first day of class. But I'd say we feel pretty good that we're at least going to be stable."
Ford says for fall, SIUC is being very careful with financial packaging so as to avoid a similar situation that the university has found itself in the past couple of years where enrollment is up but tuition revenue is down. Ford says SIU is still trying to attract the best students and provide competitive packages to the best students.
The SIU Board of Trusteeswill consider the 6% tuition increase proposal along with some additional student fee increases during its regular monthly meeting April 15th and 16th in Edwardsville.
