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First-day enrollment headcount drops at Missouri State, OTC, Drury and Evangel but up slightly at SPS
Springfield's four largest colleges reported an enrollment drop on the first day while the state's largest district — which lost 1,512 students last fall — saw a slight rebound this year.
Classes started Monday for Springfield Public Schools, Missouri State University, and Ozarks Technical Community College; Tuesday for Drury University; and Wednesday for Evangel University.
The preliminary headcount from the first day provides a snapshot but not the complete picture of enrollment, which is why the official census tally is taken in late September, about five weeks into the school year.
Missouri State's opening day enrollment was 18,935 this year, a 4 percent drop from last year's 19,677.
The university's enrollment soared to 24,163 by the official count date in 2020, ending up within 1 percent of where it had been in fall 2019, prior to the pandemic.
"I can't guarantee we'll do the same thing this year, but last year we gained ground," said Rob Hornberger, associate vice president for enrollment management and services at MSU. "We actually had a net increase in enrollment."
The Springfield district experienced a similar change between the first day and census, with opposite results.
Last year, the first day count was 24,381 for preschool through grade 12 but the census count showed a drop of 1,512, primarily in the early grades, as parents opted to wait one year to start preschool or kindergarten or to look elsewhere.
More:Missouri offers free COVID-19 testing for schools, but district must opt in
Stephen Hall, chief communications officer for SPS, said this school year started with 24,617 enrolled, a slight increase of 236 students.
The district offered just two days in-person learning each week at the start of the 2020-21 year — compared to five days a week for nearly all area districts and private schools — and slowly added them back as case rates changed.
"We are in a much different place than we were at this time last year in terms of knowing the impact of COVID-19 on the learning environment," Hall said, noting many steps the district has taken to slow or stop the spread.
"In general, people are feeling more confident about where we are even though we are still continuing in the pandemic. We know more of what to expect and we understand the health and safety protocols better because we lived through that last year."
More:After enrollment drop, Springfield Public Schools to shed 49 teaching jobs
Evangel reported 2,134 enrolled on the first day, a 2.3 percent drop from last year, but noted that change is expected.
At Ozarks Technical, enrollment across the college's campuses and online was 10,005 for the first day, a decline of 4 percent.
Mark Miller, chief media relations officer for OTC, said pinpointing the exact cause of the drop is hard.
He said the low unemployment rate, higher wages, fewer high school graduates across Missouri, and the uncertainty of the pandemic likely contributed.
OTC experienced a 12 percent enrollment increase in technical education programs, and an 8 percent jump at the Richwood Valley campus.
Enrollment in Drury's residential day school was 1,352 on the first day, 4.5 percent less than the 1,417 last year.
More:68 percent of Drury University's campus is vaccinated against COVID. Here's how they plan to celebrate.
“Enrollment is exactly where our forecasts predicted it would land,” said Kevin Kropt, the executive vice president for enrollment management, marketing and communications, in a news release. “We’re extremely pleased with our incoming class, which includes an increase in students from the Springfield area."
Kropt said the large graduating class in May fueled the drop and noted there were 413 students in Drury's incoming class, a 5 percent increase over last year.
At Missouri State, Hornberger said the university expected fewer freshmen to enroll as the pandemic has spurred more students to take a gap year after their graduation from high school.
"We were projecting to be down about 4.5 to 5.5 percent but we ended up only being down 2.7 percent," he said. "There will be some chance for that group to be down even less as we go into census."
Hornberger said the number of international students was higher than expected but not all got enrolled by the first day.
"An anomaly this year is that some of our China campus students didn't get registered in time so they didn't make the opening report," he said. "Last year, we had about 185 ... so that would have changed what our headcount looked like."
Missouri State saw an increase in graduate students, going over the 4,200 mark for the first time. One drop this year was the number of undergraduate degree-seeking students who opted to re-enroll.
"In talking to my counterparts from across the state, we're seeing that the number of returning students is just down compared to last year," he said. " ... We're all still trying to figure out what is causing that."
Claudette Riley is the education reporter for the News-Leader. Email news tips to criley@news-leader.com.
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