The head of the SIU-Carbondale campus says the spring enrollment numbers show good news regarding student retention.
On his blog, interim Chancellor John Dunn reports nearly 91 percent of first-time freshmen who enrolled at SIU-C in the fall returned for the spring semester...the highest fall-to-spring-retention rate for new students in at least 10 years.
Total enrollment for the spring semester is 10,779, an 8.6 percent decrease over spring 2019... which correlates with the 8.75 percent decline for fall 2019, when 11,695 students were enrolled. Dunn added more than 11-hundred students graduated in December, largely accounting for the difference between fall and spring enrollment numbers.
Dunn writes spring retention numbers come on the heels of a report in December in which fall 2020 applications for first-time freshmen and the number of admitted first-time students were up more than 20 percent each.
He believes these statistics prove new initiatives to increase student engagement and success are making a difference.