MU breaks records for overall, minority enrollment

University officials expect enrollment to drop in coming years.

By Jared Grafman

Published Aug. 24, 2010

Correction appended

MU broke enrollment records for first-time freshmen, minority freshmen, undergraduate students and total enrollment as of the first day of courses for the fall 2010 semester.

"Over the past nine years we have seen a significant increase in the diversity of our campus, with total enrollment in certain minority student groups increasing by more than 77 percent," Enrollment Management Vice Provost Ann Korschgen said in an MU News Bureau release.

According to the news release, 6,160 first-time freshmen were enrolled for the first day of classes.

The opening day enrollment numbers for the class of 2014 beat out the class of 2012, the previous record class, by 978 students. There are also 257 more minority students enrolled than last year's record minority numbers for opening day enrollment.

Reasons for freshmen choosing MU vary from athletics and scholarships to a good community and academic programs.

Freshman Michael English said he chose MU because of its journalism program.

"I'm going into journalism and since Mizzou is the first journalism school in the world, as well as one of the top J schools overall, I chose Mizzou," English said.

For some students, such as Mallory Lumpe, available scholarships played an important role in picking MU.

"I came here for the meteorology program," Lumpe said. "CAFNR has a lot of scholarships because it's a small program."

Other students settled with MU because of the campus and community.

"Once I went to tour the campus, I fell in love with it," freshman Lainie Barron said. "I moved away from the Midwest a few years ago and I wanted to move back to it for college."

The news release stated there were increases in Bright Flight and Curators scholarships given to students this year. 512 students enrolled in the Bright Flight program compared to 474 last year and 511 students are Curator's Scholars, 81 more students than last year.

The average ACT score for this year's freshmen class remained at 25.6, according to the news release. That is four points above the state average and higher than the national average of 21.1.

Korschgen said the university has expanded housing options as well as increased the number of courses offered to freshmen to manage the boosted enrollment rate.

There is no cap on freshmen enrollment at MU, nor has there been a cap in previous years.

"At this point, there is no cap," Korschgen said. "In fact, we anticipate a decline in first-time college student enrollment starting next fall when there is a drop in the number of high school graduates in Missouri.”

Despite predictions of a decreased enrollment rate beginning next year, this year's total enrollment is at a university record of 32,009 students.

"Not only is our enrollment increasing; the quality and diversity of our students are increasing as well," Korschgen said in the news release. "This demonstrates to us that Mizzou continues to be the top choice for scholars throughout the state."

Korschgen said the official number of freshmen enrolled would be established during the fourth week of classes.