Enrollment at Mizzou Has Plunged in Last Two Years
“despite a 14 percent increase in freshmen enrollment deposits for this fall”
The University of Missouri has never recovered from the campus protests a few years ago. Most of this is on them, as they did little to fix the problem.
The College Fix reports:
Mizzou has lost a third of freshmen in two years – even after enrollment jump this fall
The University of Missouri’s flagship campus has a lot less money to play around with, more than two years after crippling protests suggested that Mizzou was run by racial-grievance activists.
How is it spending its money now? PR and lazy rivers, apparently.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the myriad ways the university has cut back and consolidated its spending, following a $30 million revenue hole from freshmen enrollment that has plunged by 35 percent in two years.
This is despite a 14 percent increase in freshmen enrollment deposits for this fall:
Mizzou grew so fast from 2000 to 2015 — eventually hitting 35,000 in total enrollment — that many people thought the university would easily top 40,000 students within a few years. Developers hurriedly built up apartment complexes in anticipation. Now many sit unfilled. “Welcome students!” proclaims a banner on one building, a few blocks off campus. “We’ll beat any price!” …
Some of the savings came from layoffs, about 350 total on the Columbia campus. A handful of senior administrative positions were eliminated or combined. The campus also stopped subsidizing administrators’ cellphones, got rid of a fleet of Mizzou cars, and reduced its mileage-reimbursement rate for university travel.
But it spent $1.3 million on a single PR firm, 160over90, and then $1.8 million to get that 14 percent bump for fall 2018: “That amounts to about $230 per student, given the current number of freshmen.”
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Comments
I agree that Mizzou screwed the pooch and responded incredibly poorly and that is on them. However, I’m not sure that the response would have ever been enough…the problem was already out of hand by the time the national news hit, and we all got wind of this ridiculousness.
As an alumnus of The University of Kansas, I consider this to be a feel-good story of the day. RCJH
What I mean by that is, no matter how they eventually responded with the firings and other stupid measures, I’m not sure that a more decisive and corrective rather than pandering approach would have stemmed the tide of dropping enrollment.
The damage may have already been done for the most part by the publicity they received for being an out of control SJW nightmare land.
I empathize with the land developers of those apartments and other local businesses who are collateral damage in all of this that had no say in the response or initial policy.
Whatever happened to that crazy finger-pointing professor?
So why are enrollment deposits up, even if not up enough? Do enrollees now get a free toaster oven if they send cash?
If you think enrollment has plummeted, just imagine how awful it must be trying to find a job and admitting that you obtained a college degree there.
Last I heard she was teaching at Gonzaga.
I guess she must have “clicked” with them!
(End of shameless pun.)
“160over90”
That was my blood pressure whenever I would think about Mizzou and what went on there.