Despite an increasingly competitive recruiting environment, Wayne State University’s overall enrollment is up 0.4 percent — or 104 students — this fall. The increase is the first in seven years. Current enrollment is now 27,326.
Detroit’s major research university welcomed 7,346 new students to campus — the most in recent years and a 2.5 percent increase over last year’s large incoming class. The positive enrollment extends to freshmen (1 percent), transfers (6.7 percent) and graduate students (5.9 percent).
A key goal in the university’s strategic plan is to increase its overall enrollment to 30,000 students by 2021.
“Our increase is the direct result of hard work by people across the campus,” said WSU President M. Roy Wilson. “Thirty thousand is a tough yet attainable goal, and we’re moving in the right direction. An average 2 percent increase per year for the next five years will get us to our goal.”
Schools and colleges leading the growth are the College of Nursing (16.5 percent), Mike Ilitch School of Business (14.1 percent), the College of Engineering (7.1 percent), the School of Library and Information Science (6.6 percent), and the School of Social Work (5.9 percent). In the Graduate School, new master’s students are up 41 percent over the past three years.
Enrollment has improved in quality as well as quantity. This year’s freshmen class has an average GPA of 3.37 and the average ACT is 23.7.
“We’re attracting a higher caliber of student while also remaining a place of opportunity,” said Dawn Medley, associate vice president for enrollment management. “In addition to our diverse academic programs and gorgeous campus, I think more students are drawn to Wayne State because it is in the middle of the renaissance happening in Detroit.”
Wayne State’s six-year graduation rate now exceeds 38 percent this year, up at least 12 percentage points over the past five years. The rate of improvement puts Wayne State in the top 20 public institutions nationally for rate of improvement over the past four years. A key metric in the university’s strategic plan is to grow the six-year graduation rate to 50 percent by 2021.
Wayne State’s four-year graduation rate has increased dramatically, nearly twice what it was three years ago.
First-to-second year retention rate for fall 2015 freshman retention is up 4.3 percentage points, which bodes well for future graduation improvements.
Student housing remains full and there is a waiting list for student apartments. The university again this year has students in temporary housing on campus and in the nearby Hotel St. Regis.
There are numerous student success initiatives that are making a difference. Forty-five advisors have been hired for academic departments in the last few years. As a result, more students have utilized academic advising services. Students have been given access to a web-based tool called DegreeWorks, which allows them to map out and track their progress toward a degree.
Other initiatives out of the Office of the Provost include a new priority registration sequence to help students close to graduation get needed courses, using predictive analytics to identify students with elevated risk as early as possible and, beginning in winter 2017, a new course scheduling matrix that eliminates overlap between classes.