This year’s student headcount at The University of Memphis is at a three-year low, despite increased enrollment in graduate studies this semester.
According to the office of institutional research at The U of M, 19,797 graduate and undergraduate students are enrolled this semester. That total is down 2.5 percent from 20,332 last fall, when 19,986 students were enrolled.
Ralph Faudree, U of M provost, said the reason for the decrease is threefold.
“The first reason we could surmise is that graduation rates from Memphis City Schools were down this year, and we recruit from those schools,” Faudree said.
The second possible reason for decreased student enrollment, according to Faudree, is this year’s tuition increase.
“Sometimes we can cost people out of attending,” Faudree said. “But I don’t believe that our tuition is expensive compared to other schools.”
Finally, this year’s change in the payment schedule could have affected attendance, Faudree said.
“Paying a higher percentage of their tuition so early may have been too difficult for some students,” he said.
Faudree said the reason 4,772 students are enrolled in graduate school this semester, up from 4,720 last fall, could be due to increased advertising for U of M graduate courses.
“We’re trying to direct some programs to people in the work force who already have a bachelor’s degree; so we may see some growth there in the next year,” Faudree said.
Although the economy has been slow, Faudree said that normally attendance increases when the economy is weak.
“If the job market is hot, then people tend to go out and get the good jobs,” Faudree said. “But during the slow times, more people tend to go back to school. So blaming the economy would not make sense right now.”
According to statistics compiled by the Tennessee Board of Regents, Southwest Tennessee Community College’s student population has decreased from 12,736 last year to 11,039 this year.
Faudree said he does not expect attendance in the next few years to increase or decrease substantially.
“Attendance has been at around 20,000 for 10 to 15 years,” Faudree said. “It could go up some, but I just don’t see any great change.”
