While overall enrollment is down at Ball State University, freshman enrollment has increased for the 2006-2007 academic school year.
Ball State University's enrollment numbers revealed total undergraduate enrollment is down from past years on campus. 15,233 undergraduate students currently are enrolled full time at Ball State, down from last year's 15,903. Tom Taylor, vice president for enrollment, marketing and communications, said part of the reason was the size of last years graduating class.
"We graduated a much larger number of students than the year before," Taylor said. "In terms of total head count we are down about 443 compared to last year on campus."
Taylor said enrollment numbers were going down because some students have not been taking as long to graduate. Instead of taking an extra semester, students are able to graduate on time, if not early.
Curtis Westfall, director of systems technology for enrollment, marketing and communications, said although the difference in enrollment is small, Ball State is still looking for a reason and for changes that could be made in the future. For example, despite university enrollment being down, the number of freshmen enrolled has increased.
"Although we have a substantial increase in freshman enrollment this year, overall we are down in enrollment," Taylor said.
Part of the reason freshman enrollment is up is because Ball State is actively recruiting in and out of state students, Taylor said. Part of the approach to attracting more students involves visiting high schools, traveling around the country and participating in college fairs, he said.
"Doing some recruitment work, we've gone both a little deeper and little further out of state," Taylor said. "One of the things I feel very good about was applications were up this year. We are up overall."
Ball State received a 10 percent increase in applications this year. Out-of-state applications increased more than in-state applications.
"That, I think, is very important because it shows we have higher standing [nationally]," Taylor said.
Ball State's overall racial demographics did not show a major change.-áBall State minorities make up 8.1 percent of the student body, up from 8.0 percent from last year.
Taylor said diversity is something Ball State is trying to improve.
"It's a challenge given the demographics of Indiana," Taylor said. "We are still a predominately white state."
Ball state's demographics are similar to those of Indiana University, where 9 percent of IU students are considered to be minorities, according to IU's Web site.
This year, 674 students transferred to Ball State from other institutions.-á Most transfer students came from Ivy Tech and Purdue University. Some students transfer from one college to another because of a particular program, financial consideration or for geographic reasons.
Taylor said he feels good about this years enrollment.
"[It's] always a good thing to have good, strong, talented students,"
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