Mississippi State was the only one of Mississippi’s nine universities to see a decline in enrollment from 2003, the state college board said Monday.
Mississippi State remains the largest school in the state, despite the 1.5-percent decline in total enrollment.
Director of Student Affairs Joe Farris said the decline is due mostly to large graduating classes in 2003 and 2004, the result of large freshman classes in 1999 and 2000.
“They swelled the enrollment when they came in,” Farris said. “As those big classes come out the end of the pipeline, those numbers go back to where they were then.”
The total unduplicated enrollment for 2004 is 15,934. The university’s total enrollment is 239 students less than last year. Unduplicated numbers count each Mississippi State student only once, whereas duplicated numbers count MSU students multiple times if they are enrolled at more than one MSU campus.
“The changes are small enough that, to the casual observer, I don’t think you can look around campus and tell the difference,” Farris said.
State Institutions of Higher Learning records show that total freshman enrollment at MSU jumped by about 300 students from 1997 to 1998 to an all-time high of 3,015. The next year, the number fell to 2,828.
Farris attributed the decline in this year’s enrollment to several other reasons in addition to large freshman classes from the late ’90s.
Forty students did not return this semester because they were activated by the National Guard, Farris said. In addition, the number of international students fell by 97 due to post-9/11 security restrictions, he said.
Other enrollment numbers looked positive, Farris said. The university has 1,752 first-time freshmen this year compared to 1,688 last year, according to a university press release. Numbers for new graduate students and transfer students also rose, Farris said.
The state college board released two sets of numbers Monday; one for duplicated enrollment and one for unduplicated enrollment.
According to duplicated numbers, the University of Southern Mississippi is the largest university in the state with 16,386 students-about 400 more than Mississippi State’s duplicated number.
According to a press release issued by the college board, duplicated numbers can be useful for measuring the amount of resources needed for each campus a student attends.
In unduplicated numbers, USM saw a 1.3-percent increase. Ole Miss saw a 5-percent increase, trailing Jackson State University, Mississippi University for Women and the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who all saw increases of 7 percent or more.
Director of Enrollment Services John Dickerson said that differences in enrollment numbers between the state’s major universities probably don’t matter to incoming students, but might to others.
“I think it is a source of pride with our alumni, but these things change,” he said. “For us, the important thing is that our new student numbers are up.”