By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Graduate programs continue to drive enrollment at Bowling Green State University.
After a record year, despite the pandemic, overall enrollment at BGSU’s two campuses has dipped about 3.3 percent to 19,597, from 20,232, according to its 15-day head count.
Cecilia Castellano, vice president for enrollment management and student outcomes, said recruitment was stymied this year by the coronavirus.
Schools did not hold any college visit nights. “We had zero recruitment events,” she said. And far fewer students, about 3,000, visited the BGSU campus. Normally, Castellano said, between 13,000 and 14,000 would come.
BGSU is a place prospective students need to “visit and fall in jlove.”
This year’s first year class is 3,022, down from 3,281, which was a reduction from 2019, though not as bad as feared.
This reflects, Castellano said, the anticipated decline in the number of high school students is starting to be felt.
The first year students who did enroll represented the most academically prepared class ever for BGSU with an average Grade Point Average of 3.6, and an ACT score of 23.
More students, she said, are arriving at college with Advanced Placement, honors, and College Credit Plus credits. Those courses are weighted when the student’s GPA is calculated.
The university reported 300 students enrolled in its Honors College.
The university’s Pathways Program, she said, does offer those students who may not as ready for college admission a way in. That program experienced a 34-percent growth.
Retention of last year’s class was 78.3 percent, down from about 79 percent the previous fall.
Graduate programs, however, especially online programs, represent the growth on campus.
The university reported that its eCampus and distance graduate programs were up 9 percent.
Overall graduate school enrollment was up 1 percent. Some of that was driven by an increase in international students.
BGSU also saw a 5-percent increase in transfer students.
Castellano said institutions such as Edison State Community College, which is offering free tuition, are reaching out to first-year students.
At the Faculty Senate last week, President Rodney Rogers acknowledged the importance of graduate programs to the university. The university’s fiscal well-being is driven by enrollment, both the tuition students pay as well as the state support, which is based on enrollment and how well universities retain and graduate students.
Those enrolled in professional graduate programs pay higher tuition, he said.
Because of the multi-year approach to the financial challenges posed by the pandemic and enrollment not going down as much as feared in spring, 2020, “we’re okay right now on the budgetary side,” Rogers said.
But the university does face a long-term demographic challenge.
Nationally there are 1.5 million fewer students in college now than there were five years ago.
“When you think about what’s going on in higher education, we’re hanging in there,” Rogers said. But retaining and graduating the students the university enrolls is more and more critical to its finances.
