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Overall Trend

The overall enrollment at UWEST has declined in the past 6 years. The enrollment slightly increased up until 2017-18; however, since then, it has declined continuously down to 300 by 2020-21. Compared to 1, 3 and 5 years ago (2019-20, 2017-18, 2015-16), enrollment in 2020-21 has declined by 13%, 36% and 30%, respectively. The impact of COVID-19, which began in Spring 2020, most likely accounts for the decline in the last two years, but the enrollment decline began prior to COVID.

The Fall term headcount trend reveals the similar pattern.

Trend by Academic Level

The 6YR enrollment pattern differs by academic level. The graduate enrollment has been declining continuously since 2015-16 and has shrunk by about 40% in the last 5 years. In contrast, both undergraduate and non-degree enrollment increased from 2015-16 to 2017-18 and thereafter declining continuously. The undergraduate enrollment has been declining steadily by about 7-8% each year since 2017-18.

The academic level composition of the student body has changed profoundly in the last 6 years. In 2015-16, the graduate enrollment made up almost 50% of the total enrollment and both non-degree and undergraduate enrollment each making up roughly 25%. In 2020-21, graduate and undergraduate have equal proportion (nearly 40%) of total enrollment.

The Fall term headcount trend reveals the similar pattern. Including the latest Fall 2021 term shows that the pattern of enrollment decline has continued. The Fall undergraduate enrollment has declined by 30% from last year hitting a 6-year low at 77 students.

Undergraduate Enrollment Trend by Enrollment Status

If we break out by enrollment status, we can see that the increase in undergraduate enrollment in 2016 and 2017 mostly had to do with the sudden increase in the number of new first-time college students. Compared to 2015FA, in 2016FA and 2017FA, the number of new first-time college students has jumped suddenly from 6 to 20 and 48. The number of new transfer students has remained relatively steady at around 15 student each Fall semester. In Fall 2019, the number was all time high at 22, but it dipped down to 11 and 6 in Fall 2020 and Fall 2021, respectively.

The impact of COVID is most noticeable in undergraduate enrollment by comparing Fall 2020 and Fall 2021. The number of continuing/returning students dropped by about 30, and the number of new students was all time low at 13 students in Fall 2021.

Trend by Academic Load Status

To understand enrollment trend by academic load status (full-time vs part-time), it is better to analyze this by term. The table below is the past 6 Fall terms for graduate and undergraduate enrollment by load status. Mostly, the percentage of students who are full-time has remained steady at above 85% with a very slight increase over the last 5 years.

Trend by Demographics

Residency Status

The graduate and undergraduate enrollment by residency status over the past 6 years show divergent pattern. While graduate enrollment saw an slight increase from domestic students and slight decrease in international students, the opposite pattern holds for undergraduate students. The domestic undergraduate enrollment decreased by 11% from 2015-16 to 2020-21, and the international undergraduate enrollment increased by 12% in the same time period. Not surprisingly, the non-degree student enrollment declined by 32% in 1 year from 2019-20 to 2020-21 due to COVID.

Ethnicity

When we break out the domestic students by ethnicity, we can observe two trends.

  1. The demographic profile of domestic students (groups other than non-resident alien) differ significantly between graduate and undergraduate levels. At the graduate level, Asian and White students are the largest group making up roughly 32% and 14% of the total graduate enrollment in 2020-21. The Latinx students make up only 4-6%. In contrast, at the undergraduate level, the pattern is completely flipped with Latinx students making up roughly 40% of the total undergraduate enrollment. This overall difference between the graduate and the undergraduate enrollment has remained consistent over the last 6 years.

  2. As observed above in the comparison of enrollment by residency status, the most noticeable trend is the increase of international students at the undergraduate level and the decrease of domestic students at the graduate level. However, among domestic undergraduate students, the college appear to be losing Asian students while among domestic graduate students, Asian students appear to be increasing.

Gender

The enrollment pattern along gender at both undergraduate and graduate level is clear: male and female enrollment were roughly the same in 2015-16, but since then female enrollment has been steadily increasing, reaching roughly 60% of enrollment in 2020-21. For non-degree students, the percentage breakdown along gender have remained roughly the same.

Trend by Program

Undergraduate Program

The three most popular undergraduate programs remain Business Administration, Liberal Arts, and Psychology. Liberal Arts has grown significantly in size since its inception in 2016-17. Business Administration and Psychology have been steady with enrollment size of roughly 30 and 40, respectively. The number of students in the BA English program and in undeclared program has been declining over the past 6 years. These two programs have less than 10 students total in 2020-21.

Graduate Program

At the graduate level, each program showed a different trend over the last 6 years. The following programs showed steady enrollment with minor fluctuations:

  • Masters of Divinity in Buddhist Chaplaincy
  • Masters of Arts in Religious Studies
  • Doctor of Buddhist Ministry
  • Doctor of Theology in Applied Buddhist Studies
  • Executive Master of Business Administration (from 2015-16 to 2016-17)

The following three programs showed continuous decline:

  • Masters of Business Administration
  • Masters of Arts in Psychology
  • Doctor of Philosophy in Religious Studies

Non-Degree-Seeking Program

Non-degree-seeking programs showed different trends over the last 6 years. The enrollment in general non-degree seeking had spiked in 2016-17 and 2017-18, but came back down to the level of 2015-16 enrollment. Certificate in Business Administration have remained roughly the same, though fluctuating a bit. The ESL certificate program has dwindled from 30 enrollments to 3 enrollments by 2019-20. Intensive English had started with 10 enrollments in 2019-20 and went down to 4 enrollment in 2020-21. Finally, the exchange and visiting student program took a huge hit, likely due to COVID, in 2020-21, with enrollment going down to 10 compared to roughly 50 over the previous 5 years.