SIU's fall enrollment at Carbondale drops 2 percent

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois University's fall enrollment in Carbondale has slid 2 percent from last year, prompting the school's hiring of two new recruiters in the Chicago area as part of a push to reverse the decline, SIU officials said Wednesday.

SIU students here now number 21,003, 438 fewer than the 21,441 a year ago. The school's enrollment steadily has declined since 2004, with the student population stagnating around 21,000 range since 1996. Fifteen years ago, the school had 24,869 students, according to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, which tracks enrollment at public universities.

On Wednesday, the overseer since July 1 of the school's enrollment functions -- provost and vice chancellor John Dunn -- said he already was focusing on next fall, eventually hoping to boost the enrollment to about 23,000 by 2010.

To get there, he said, the school has hired two new recruiters to attract student prospects from the Chicago area and has pledged that colleges at the school that show increases in undergraduate enrollment will get corresponding budget increases next fall as incentives. The university also is exploring new linkages with community colleges, with plans to invest more in marketing.

According to the IBHE, 202,236 students were enrolled in Illinois public universities in 2005, up from 195,272 just four years earlier, the Southern Illinoisan reported Wednesday.

On SIU's Edwardsville campus, enrollment has grown steadily from about 11,000 to 13,000 between 1996 and 2004. From 1991 to 2004, that campus' enrollment rose 14.3 percent while the Carbondale school's student population fell 13.2 percent.