Fall enrollment picture is mixed

By ARTHUR PAGE
News Services Director

Enrollment for this semester is down 188 full-time-equivalents (FTEs), or 130 students, from the targets budgeted for Fall 1998, but administrators are stressing that the university is not experiencing an enrollment problem.

Still, the campus may be faced with reducing expenditures by as much as $500,000 if spring-semester enrollments are not over-target by 188 FTEs.

"The university's fall enrollments overall are healthy," said Senior Vice President Robert J. Wagner. "At the graduate level, some programs have not met their targets and there are selected graduate programs that have to be looked at and addressed. But it's not like other years when there was a 'structural problem.'"

In fact, the official enrollment report, based on a "snapshot" taken on Sept. 18, shows that at the undergraduate level, UB this fall has exceeded its targets for both freshmen-with a headcount of 2,932, 132 above the target-and transfer students-1,683, 83 above target. It's the second year in a row that numbers in both categories are up.

While the number of continuing/returning undergraduates is 52 below the target of 11,100, the shortfall is significantly smaller than a year ago, when it was 260 below target.

Nicolas D. Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, noted that there not only are 117 more freshmen compared to last fall, but that the mean combined SAT score for members of the Class of 2002 increased 11 points, to 1145.

"We have increased the size and the quality of the class," Goodman added.

Sean P. Sullivan, vice provost for academic information and planning, said the largest shortfall this semester has occurred with continuing/returning students at the graduate/professional level, where the enrollment of 5,544 is 256 heads below the target. New enrollments at the level were 37 off from the target of 2,200.

The shortfall at the graduate level, he stressed, should not be viewed as an across-the-board problem, but one occurring in "pockets" and focusing on a handful of programs.

A report prepared by Sullivan's office noted that at the graduate level, three schools fell below their target by more than 10 percent: School of Nursing enrollment is 22.3 percent below target, enrollment in the School of Architecture and Planning is off by 15.9 percent and enrollment in the School of Pharmacy is 13.7 percent under target.

Enrollment in six units-arts and sciences, information and library studies; dental medicine; management, health related professions, and law-is over target.

David J. Triggle, vice provost for graduate education and dean of the Graduate School, said several factors account for the shortfalls at the graduate and professional level.

Triggle, who this week attended a national meeting of graduate-school deans, noted that part of what is occurring at UB at the graduate level is a national trend.

"Graduate enrollments at many institutions, but not all, seem to have plateaued off this year and appear to be declining overall," he added.

The economy and favorable job market are having a negative impact, with some college graduates who have obtained employment not pursuing graduate studies and some graduate students cutting their studies short in favor of a job.

An unfavorable job market for particular careers also can have a negative effect, Triggle added. He noted that he sees the shortfall in nursing students at the graduate level as related to the fact that managed care in general and this year's merger of three of the Buffalo area's largest hospitals, with a possible reduction in total workforce, in particular causing some to re-think pursing a master's degree in nursing.

Triggle said the ability to identify factors impacting negatively on graduate enrollment at UB does not negate the fact that overall UB's professional schools could "do a better job in recruiting" graduate students and that "we have to make some of our programs more attractive.

"We have to think about what the market wants," he added, "not what the faculty want."

In some programs, he noted, stipends for graduate students fall short of those offered at other universities. "That hurts us in the end," he said. "We have to catch up there."

Overall, he added, "there are a whole host of things we can do" to boost graduate enrollment.

Sullivan noted that the shortfall of 188 FTEs this semester will require that spring-semester enrollment be that number over target if enrollment for the 1998-99 academic year is to be in line with the university's budget and revenue projections in its financial plan.

Wagner noted: "Our efforts will be focused on making the tuition revenue shortfall as small as possible. We frankly hope it won't exceed $500,000."

SUNY this year instituted a new Resource Allocation Methodology to allocate state tax support that allows for the retention of all tuition and fees by the individual campuses. Wagner said that for campuses with a revenue shortfall due to enrollments below-target, the practice will be the same as in previous years: campuses need to reduce expenditures by an amount equal to the shortfall to balance their budget.