Official enrollment numbers for South Dakota State University won’t be known for a couple weeks, but judging by the smiles coming from top administrators, the news should be good.
“We are really excited at South Dakota State University about what we’re projecting for enrollment for the fall 2024 semester,” said Shawn Helmboldt, assistant vice president for enrollment management. “Our retention of students has been strong the past few years and we anticipate that continuing for the fall of 2024.”
The university welcomed 11,505 students last fall with 2,275 first-year students, according to Helmboldt. In the fall of 2022, there were 11,331 students.
The campus community will know if the university grew again this year when official enrollment numbers for SDSU and the other five state universities will be released in September.
A strong freshman class and strong retention rates are among the reasons for optimism.
This comes at a time when many colleges and universities across the nation are losing students.
One way that the university has been preparing for the strong enrollment is reopening Waneta Hall to accommodate the first- and second-year students.
“It was apparent that we needed to expand our options for housing to serve all of the required students that needed to live on campus,” according to Michaela Willis, vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. “We felt like reopening Waneta Hall would give us the most flexibility and the best student experience.”
The reopening of Waneta gave the university 258 additional beds at double occupancy.
While this year’s enrollment numbers look to be strong, the enrollment was 12,557 students in fall 2014. So, the overall enrollment has decreased compared to a decade ago, and several factors contribute to that reality.
“Our graduation rate of students has increased,” Helmboldt said. “The number of credits that students are required to take…in order to graduate has decreased in the last 10 years and the increase in the number of students who are coming to SDSU with college credits already completed through dual credit programs and AP opportunities has increased pretty dramatically in the last 10 years.”
“All of those things are really positive for the university and they’re really positive for our students as well,” Helmboldt said. “It takes students less time to complete their degree now and they’re finishing their degrees faster. In turn, they’re paying less for their degrees for credit opportunities or opportunities on campus and they’re obviously completing their goal and completing their career path or workplace in a quicker time period.”
While a larger enrollment number is good news for the university, more people could pose some challenges with returning students making places feel busier than before.
“What we’ve seen is that classes are more full. They’ll be closer to capacity than they have been in the past,” Willis said. “Students will feel their classes are more full and so that’s something we always have to take a look at.”
Along with classes, students may have busier dining and parking experiences, but it doesn’t mean the university hasn’t planned for the accommodation of more students in those areas.
“The university has planned appropriately to ensure that students aren’t negatively impacted by course sections or parking or things of that nature,” Helmboldt said. “Even though there may be some challenges encountered in those areas from time to time.”
Willis said that SDSU has had larger enrollment numbers in the past, such as in 2014, and they managed just fine.
“It’s a great problem to have,” Willis said. “While it presents some challenges, those are opportunities to stretch a little bit and frankly we have had larger enrollment for what I anticipate this fall and we’ve been able to manage that as well.”
St. Cloud State University and other universities have had to cut majors and programs due to decreased enrollment, yet, the opposite is happening at SDSU.
Willis says there are many factors that contribute to high enrollment that include their strategic planning to prepare for increased enrollment.
“We have been actively planning and implementing plans to impact both incoming student enrollment in a positive way,” Willis said. “We just finished up our first strategic enrollment management plan for the university a year ago, and we launched our newest one this summer.”
Not only does Willis think that planning has drawn in more students, but she believes SDSU branding is contributing to the increased enrollment.
“The university and our reputation and our brand is stronger than it ever has been before,” Willis said. “Whether it’s back-to-back national football championships, or men’s and women’s basketball making it into the NCAA Division I Tournament to winning the WNIT, our Pride of the Dakotas being in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, raising $604 million through our comprehensive campaign…those things really showcasing the power of the South Dakota State University degree.”
Helmboldt said he thinks students should like the expanding enrollment numbers because it means that the university is continuing to grow.
“I think our current students should feel very good about the fact that more and more new students are choosing to attend SDSU,” Helmbolt said. “Ultimately, that speaks to the quality of education and the quality of experience that students can receive here at SDSU compared to other colleges and universities.”
