MARSHA COHEN
Staff Writer
The topic of enrollment has always been a touchy subject on college campuses. With the rising cost of college and the uncertainty of the job market, many colleges are feeling the weight, or lack thereof, of their students.
Fredonia is no exception.
The University has experienced a drop in enrollment since 2009, when enrollment was at its highest at 5,775 total students. Since then the school has seen a decrease, dropping to its lowest point at Fall 2014 to 5,246, divided between 4,970 undergrads and 276 graduates. Dr. David Herman, Vice President of Student Affairs, recognizes this drop but realizes that the main factor isn’t something he can control.
“This a very sensitive topic. You can have a slight decline in enrollment, but we knew we were going to have a slight decline in enrollment because of the demographics. There just aren’t that many graduates in Western New York,” said Herman.
While many people might see this as an alarming trend, certain faculty members see the growth within certain demographics as step in the right direction.
“With an increased emphasis at Fredonia regarding internationalization, we have now created a campus team that includes both faculty and staff working hand in hand to attract and enroll more international students to Fredonia. We’re also in the midst of creating stronger ties with international agency recruiters like KORUS in South Korea along with creating new partnership agreements with top high schools in both Korea and China,” said Daniel Tramuta, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services.
“We’ve known that these demographics were going to happen. So what accounts for these changes? Economic, college is expensive. Fredonia won’t leave you in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, but some students do have loans. There is the mix of majors. The number of students going into education has declined, but the number of students going into the STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) has increased. If headlines say that ‘enrollment decreases,’ that’s not true, because some areas have seen an increase,” said Herman.
To counteract this drop, Fredonia has implemented programs to attract students from other areas of New York and out-of-state.
“Our recruitment strategy within New York State is being driven by looking to grow applications in all of our downstate territories, extending from Albany east. As a result we’ve seen an increase with both accepted and enrolled new students downstate due to our increased Fredonia’s presence at high schools and college fair programs. We’ve also become more data driven and strategic with our advertising and marketing to prospective students, parents, along with high school counselors in order to identify more geographic areas outside of our primary and tertiary markets that we desire to grow in as well as trying to increase our brand awareness,” said Tramuta.
While Fredonia is making strides in new areas, it has not forgotten its roots.
“We are recruiting more internationally; we are trying to improve our graduate enrollment. We’re trying to get connected to the Buffalo Say Yes program. We now have 50 to 60 Say Yes students here at Fredonia. We’ve updated the Williams Center, the Fitness Center. We have a great music program, we are making some changes to the dance program and we have a great comm program,” said Herman.
Even though the numbers might tell a slightly upsetting story, some find it easy to boast in the progress made.
“We feel Fredonia has become more appealing than two or three years ago because of continued enhancements to strengthen our academic programs, increased ethnic and geographic diversity, along with new construction such as the new Science Center, Fitness Center, renovation to the Williams Center along with the addition currently under construction to our Performing Arts building,” said Tramuta.