Numbers support LU efforts to increase regional enrollment

In this Feb. 3, 2016 file photo, Lincoln University student Demarco Robinson, left, and Quaylan Jackson walk up the circular stairs overlooking the first floor stacks as they make their way to the third floor archives room inside the Inman E. Page Library on the Jefferson City campus.
In this Feb. 3, 2016 file photo, Lincoln University student Demarco Robinson, left, and Quaylan Jackson walk up the circular stairs overlooking the first floor stacks as they make their way to the third floor archives room inside the Inman E. Page Library on the Jefferson City campus.

Lincoln University's faculty were asked last week to support an effort to increase the number of Mid-Missouri students who enroll at the school.

"When we looked at the enrollment data, we (saw) that Lincoln University is on a continuous decline," Interim Foundation Director Earl Wheatfall told the Faculty Senate on Thursday.

"Over the last seven years, we have been continually going down."

And the drop among Mid-Missouri students generally mirrors that decline in total enrollment.

In the 2011-12 academic year, LU records show Lincoln had 3,950 full- and part-time students - with 2,418 (or 61.22 percent) of them coming from Missouri, and 1,615 (or 66.79 percent of the Missourians) coming from seven Mid-Missouri counties - Cole, Callaway, Boone, Moniteau, Morgan, Miller and Osage.

In the 2015-16 academic year - the most recent covered by LU's published statistics - the school's records show a 13.5 percent drop from the 2011-12 academic year, in total enrollment, to 3,418 students, with 1,910 (or 55.88 percent) coming from Missouri and 1,134 (or 59.37 percent of the Missourians) coming from those seven Mid-Missouri counties.

While the school has not reported the details of the 2016-17 or the current academic years, the student census numbers from fall 2016 and 2017 showed a continued decline, to 2,788 total students in September 2016 and 2,622 last fall.

That's a roughly 33 percent drop in total enrollment from the 2011-12 year to last fall.

In the 2012-13 year, the seven Mid-Missouri counties provided 70 percent of the 2,140 Missourians who attended Lincoln, and Missouri sent 58.3 percent of the school's 3,673 total.

In the 2013-14 year, LU's total enrollment was 3,459, with 2,006 (57.99 percent) from Missouri, and the seven Mid-Missouri counties providing 67.2 percent of the total Missourians.

In the 2014-15 school year, Lincoln had 3,505 total students - a slight, 1.5 percent increase from the previous year.

However, Missouri's total dropped to 2,017, or 57.5 percent. And the Mid-Missouri total - 1,287 students - also was lower, and 63.8 percent of the Missouri total.

During part of that period - the three years from fall 2013 through spring 2016 - Lincoln spent more than $500,000 on contracts with outside firms to help recruit more students from other parts of the country.

Those contracts didn't result in immediately noticeable increases, but school officials have been hopeful their work planted seeds for future students' interest in LU.

Meanwhile, Wheatfall and computer science teacher Mike Nichols want Lincoln's faculty to visit area high schools about once a month, talking with counselors about the benefits students can find by commuting from their Mid-Missouri homes to Lincoln.

They hope that will help bring more Mid-Missourians back to Lincoln.

"It's in our best interests," Wheatfall said.