Note: This story was partially run in the EWU Back to School special section. Due to a publishing error it is being pprinted in its entirety.
The upward trend with record enrollment numbers continues as Eastern Washington University welcomes its largest freshman class ever for the start of the 2015-2016 school year.
“We’re going to have our biggest freshman class ever,” Neil Woolf, associate vice president for enrollment management said. “Right now we’re tracking 6.5-7-percent up,” and by the 10th day of the fall term the numbers will become official.
The school has surpassed the 1,700 mark, topping the previous freshmen high of 1,610 in 2008.
Overall, the enrollment is also ahead of last year, Woolf said, up about 1 percent from 2014’s 13,453, the final head count in fall, meaning when final numbers become official there will be roughly between 13,600-13,700.
In the past 10 years the school has seen just under a 30 percent gain in its population, which was reported at 9,775 in 2005. Fifty years ago in 1965, Eastern Washington State College, then known primarily as a training ground for teachers, was expecting total enrollment of 3,600.
Graduate programs are also showing increases after a couple of years of remaining stable, Woolf said.
What’s driving the trend growth?
One thing Eastern touts is it being the best bargain of any state school. According to figures on the university website, tuition and fees at EWU are $7,866 for a resident undergrad. The Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE), a program that reduces non-resident tuition for eligible out-of-state students in 14 states is $11,565 and non-residents pay $22,271.
But value is just part of the improved numbers, Woolf explained. Changing the recruitment message was one of his goals upon arriving at Eastern two years ago.
“We still talk about our value, an affordable option,” Woolf said. “(But) we talk about what you get with the academics here.”
At one time that might have leaned heavy towards the teacher-training path, but now it is much more diversified.
“Our engineering program has now had 10 years to mature and get some buzz going around that,” Woolf said. Eastern has a higher proportion of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) graduates than Central or Western Washington universities do.
“So yeah, we’ve kind of been diversified a bit,” Woolf said.
That new variety seen in the student population has had help being generated by a program called the CRM or Constituent Relationship Management. It’s a database with over 100,000 names that is similar to the type of lead generators sales people use.
Only the CRM crunches names, numbers and interests of students across the nation who have taken the SAT and ACT tests.
“We purchase names of juniors and seniors in high school that have characteristics that are favorable to enrollment here at Eastern,” Woolf explained. “It’s been pretty helpful to have that tool,” he said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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