Milligan’s enrollment declined for the fourth consecutive year from 899 students in the fall of 2001 to 843 students this semester, according to David Mee, vice president for enrollment management.
While traditional undergraduate enrollment remained about the same, dropping from 716 in 2001 to 711 in 2002, Mee said the number of non-traditional students declined from 183 in 2001 to 132 this year.
Mee said that shifts in the economy and market demand affected the enrollment numbers in non-traditional programs, which includes adult degree completion and graduate programs. Another factor in this decrease was the larger than normal graduating classes in the adult degree completion and Master of Education programs in August.
“In one sense, this is actually good news,” Mee said. “We graduated more students who are now ready to embark on their careers (and) contribute to society.”
Mee said Milligan is always looking for new opportunities to reach prospective students. This past summer, he said that Milligan participated in a phoning program to reach prospective students.
“Milligan
worked with an educational firm that helped us reach over 4,000 rising high
school seniors who were already in our prospective student database,” Mee
said. “These phone calls enabled us to more effectively identify the students
who are the most interested in Milligan and a Christian college education.”
Milligan
has also worked to expand admissions information on the college website, develop
new prospective student networks for graduate programs and visit more supporting
churches.
“We
are encouraged to be ahead in fall 2003 undergraduate applications compared to
one year ago,” Mee said.