This is interesting on a number of levels.
First, enrollment is actually up across the country, but down at the UI.
Second, the UI has been counting high school students for their enrollment numbers (see UI reports total enrollment up which includes continued declines in on campus college students)
Third, that they admitted this publicly and at Staben’s farewell, means that there’s more bad news to come. I’m sure they are leaking a few bad numbers, and then they will “recalculate” the real bad news later.
University of Idaho enrollment dipped this year for the first time in years, President Chuck Staben said in his State of the University address Tuesday.
“Our enrollment is down slightly this year,” Staben said “We don’t have official figures yet, but we anticipate that at least our full-time, on-campus students will be down.”
While these numbers have negative implications on the University’s ability to fulfill its mission of educating a growing student population in Idaho, he said it will also have a direct effect on the budget.
“With respect to finances, we have been planning, as you know, that our enrollment would grow and help sustain some of the expenditures we made at the University,” Staben said. “We have not grown enrollment, and we are facing some financial challenges in the next year.”