Kent State’s Enrollment is Down Despite Record-Breaking Freshman Class
A report shared by Kent State University in early October touted many upward trends for the class of 2025.
The freshman class came in with an all time high GPA of 3.5, an increased first-generation population of 32% and a 14% enrollment to the Honors College. Along with these numbers, this incoming class had enrollment 4% larger than the previous year.
In president Todd Diacon’s 2019 financial update, Diacon mentioned a decline in student enrollment across the eight campuses.
“Enrollment has declined for the fifth consecutive year – from a headcount of 41,891 in fall 2013 to 38,323 in fall 2018,” Diacon stated in the report. This downward trend in enrollment began nearly a decade ago, with a fall 2012 preponderant enrollment of 42,513 being the last time enrollment grew from one fall fifteenth day enrollment count to the next.
Enrollment for Kent State University can be broken into several categories. Each of its eight regional campuses have their own enrollment data, along with statistics for each campus put together by the Institutional Research team.
The data released in their reports can be concurrent, which includes all students enrolled at each campus, even if it overlaps. While preponderant data accounts for students who may be enrolled in classes at several Kent State campuses, and only allows their enrollment to be counted for the campus they are taking the most credits at.
Following a global pandemic, the president’s budget update indicated yet another drop in enrollment. “Enrollment declined for the eighth consecutive year, from a headcount of 42,513 in fall 2012 to 36,264 in fall 2020,” Diacon stated.
A crucial marker for monitoring enrollment is the fifteenth day mark, previously mentioned. Each section of the year has its own set of data but the fall fifteenth day data is most widely referenced since it signifies the beginning of a new school year.
Fall 2021 data was released in September and showed another decline of 1.23%, even despite a larger incoming freshman class. Across Kent State campuses, freshman enrollment dropped 2.23% from 2020 and the growth seen was with Kent Campus freshmen specifically.
Even on the Kent Campus, enrollment for every other class fell from 2020 to 2021.
Design Class enrollment from 2020 and 2021 fifteenth day fall reports for Kent Campus. Light blue represents 2020 and dark blue represents 2021.Tuition and fees account for 64% of the University’s operating revenue, making this gradual decline a concern and priority. “The leadership and staff of the Division of Enrollment Management recently launched a Strategic Enrollment Management plan for the years 2022-2024,” Diacon stated.
Within the budget update, the president shared an emphasis for broadening the University’s reach into new markets, especially with the existing programs like the School of Fashion and the College of Aeronautics and Engineering.
“We’ve really paid attention to declining enrollments the past years,” Interim Vice President of Enrollment Management Sean Broghammer said.
Over the last year the University has been working on a plan with colleagues, faculty and staff from all eight campuses and their plan manifested into the Strategic Enrollment Management plan that got approval from the Board of Trustees in June.
The plan partially focuses on the growing and innovative programs, as the president had stated. “We’re raising awareness and profile of the college,” Broghammer said. However, this is only one part of their initiative.
The group that had helped to put the plan together identified six areas of focus including academic affairs, data and technology, enrollment access and completion, external visibility and brand awareness, fiscal initiatives and student support services and co-curricular experience.
“Each of those six areas were identified as strategic areas we wanted to focus on,” Broghammer said.
They are just entering the implementation phase of this plan, but more specific examples of what this will look like includes increased use of waitlists and improving the study abroad approval process.
President Diacon also cited Ohio’s population decline as an obstacle for improving enrollment. “This will be an enormous challenge for Kent State and the other Ohio public universities because our state’s population is declining,” Diacon stated.
While Ohio saw growth of 2.3% in the 2020 census, the number doesn’t hold up to the national average of 7.4%, making Kent State’s mission even more important to the University.
“I think students are faced with a number of different options when they graduate from high school right now,” Broghammer said, suggesting entering the military and going directly into the workforce as those other options.
To combat the decreased population and student interest to pursue college in Ohio, the University has also chosen to look at other sources of potential enrollment. One being looking outside the traditional audience who may want to enroll at a University, like those who have taken some college credits but never got a degree.
Another area of focus is retention of what students Kent State does have and making sure that they graduate. “Kent State has made incredible improvements over the past decade when it comes to student success and outcomes,” Broghammer said.
Kent State has a short term goal of reaching an 85% retention rate and they’re currently between 80-82%, according to Broghammer.
Regardless of what Kent State has planned, they’re aware of the enrollment issue continuing on the horizon.
“It’s about being proactive,” Broghammer said, “we know enrollment is going to be a challenge, not just at Kent State but across Ohio.”
Kent State enrollment has dropped nine consecutive years, even after their increase in freshmen enrollment of 4% in 2021#MDJRPP
— sophie (@sophiegiffin) October 26, 2021
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