This marks the second year in a row in which UB's enrollment was down from the previous year, said Goodman, who is coordinating UB's enrollment-management efforts now that the Office of Admissions and other undergraduate academic services have been moved to the Office of the Provost.

"This puts us in the hole from the point of view that next year we will have to make this up," he added.

Although UB brought in more new students for the Fall 1997 semester than it did for the Fall 1996 semester, the number of returning students continues to decline, Goodman said.

Figures from the university's enrollment "snapshot" taken on Sept. 19 show that the total FTE enrollment is 20,743, down 188 FTE from last year and 287 from the budgeted target.

The actual headcount is 23,429, down 521 from the budgeted target of 23,950 and 148 from the Fall 1996 enrollment of 23,577.

Freshmen exceed target

The budgeted target is the enrollment number negotiated between UB and SUNY and is the figure upon which UB's budget is based.

Goodman said UB exceeded its target for incoming freshmen, bringing in 2,816 students, 116 more than the target of 2,700 and 241 more than last year's number of 2,575.

The number of students transferring to UB improved by 92 over last year, to 1,596, although the total is 204 below the budgeted target of 1,800.

"It's impressive that we exceeded the freshman targets, because we didn't expect to do that," Goodman said, praising the efforts of the admissions staff, led by Director Regina Toomey.

"The transfer numbers also are better than we thought they would be," he said, adding that transfer numbers for SUNY institutions as a whole are down, "so it's impressive that we were able to bring our numbers up" (over last year).

The real cause for concern, Goodman said, is retention. The number of continuing undergraduates declined by 352 from last year, to 11,140, and by 260 from the target of 11,400.

The number of returning graduate students fell to 5,743, a drop of 200 from the Fall 1996 figure of 5,943 and 257 from the target of 6,000. Total graduate enrollment for Fall 1997 is 7,877, down 129 from last year and 173 from the target.

He attributed part of the large decline in continuing undergraduates to the fact that most of the unusually large freshman class of 1993-more than 3,000 students entered UB that fall-has finally moved through the system.

Retention key to improvement

Nevertheless, retention remains a crucial issue, Goodman stressed, and in the long run, the key to improving overall enrollment figures will be to improve retention.

"We have to make the whole institution more welcoming to students and more effective in meeting students' needs. The efforts we make to improve retentionÉin the long run will make it possible to recruit more students." Goodman noted that UB has hired an enrollment-management consulting firm, Noel-Levitz, to provide advice, software and "direct technical help" to aid the university in its recruitment efforts.

Enrollment "has got to be a very high priority; we've got to turn this around next year," he said.