NMU Announces 10th-Day Enrollment

Northern’s 10th-day enrollment report shows slight increases in the number of first-time, full-time freshmen and in the academic credentials of new freshmen enrolled in baccalaureate programs.

An unexpected dip at the sophomore level has contributed to a decrease in student headcount after nine straight years of growth. The preliminary total enrollment figure of 9,111 is 2.6 percent lower than the 9,353 recorded in 2006.

“We’re concerned about the sophomores who chose not to return to NMU and we will be targeting our research to figure out why,” said Paul Duby (Institutional Research). “We have 195 fewer students from the Upper Peninsula this fall. The bulk of that comes from declines in Marquette and Houghton counties.

“Normally, academic performance is the reason most freshmen don’t come back, but that’s not the case this year. We have to determine why students who were academically eligible did not stay enrolled. This is a retention issue, not a recruitment issue.”

Of the new baccalaureate freshmen (1,368 total), almost one-third were recruited from outside Michigan: 169 from Illinois, 135 from Wisconsin and 48 from Minnesota.

“We’re excited that the new freshmen numbers are up because recruiting new students has become increasingly competitive,” said Paul Duby, associate vice president for institutional research. “National news indicates that students and their parents are becoming much more determined consumers. They’re filling out more applications, getting admitted to multiple schools and attending multiple orientations before making a final selection.”

Other preliminary data show that 78 percent of all NMU students are enrolled in baccalaureate programs, 54 percent are female and 7.4 percent represent ethnic minorities.

According to Duby, the most popular undergraduate academic programs among incoming students, based on enrollment, are: nursing, 557 majors; art and design, 545; criminal justice, 341; and elementary education, 333.