the preview numbers are actually ahead of last year to date.  Not sure how we will end up but right now we are ahead.

As someone who has worked with enrollment management (at another institution) for over a decade, I just want the chime in with the observation that recruiters & administrators love to take credit for enrollment growth. And sometimes, they get the axe when enrollment declines (although more often than not they get budget increases to ramp up advertising, etc.)

But the stone cold truth is that it is arrogant to assume that anything colleges & universities do can substantially impact enrollment. The biggest driver is the economy. For example, in the early '90s, fresh h.s. graduates could make as much valet parking cars at casinos in Biloxi as they might make as a schoolteacher with a bachelor's degree. So enrollments declined.

USM has raised tuition, yes. The administration has made the university look moronic, yes. But the belief among prospective students that they can earn an immediate paycheck without further education is a much more powerful force.

Remember, the vast majority of prospective students in Mississippi do not have a lot of pressure at home to go to college. Most parents in Mississippi really want their kids to go to work & get the hell off the family dole. In short, higher education is not valued by the majority of people in this state. Look around you: schoolteachers can't get jobs but truck drivers can.

What happens at USM, for good or ill, is unlikely to have much of an effect on total undergraduate enrollment numbers. The bulk of our students who are junior college transfers don't seriously consider going any where else. Because of family, employment, location, limited resources, perceptions, or self concept, very few of them even look into other schools. What losses do occur would be among freshmen who might look elsewhere. Based on IHL numbers in the Clarion Ledger, that may have happened last year as our freshman class dropped about 200. USM figures showed a drop of about half of that.

For many students in south Mississippi, USM is their only shot at an education. That means we have a special responsibility to meet their needs.