Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State University says the number of students applying for the fall semester is up, following a national trend at other schools but also signaling the university, which laid off faculty last year due to declining enrollment, may be able to increase its student count.
The university has received more than 6,000 applications from high school seniors, a 6.9% increase from the same time last year, and a 22.6% increase over where the university was for fall 2020 high school senior applications at this point, Susan Schauer, the university’s vice president for enrollment management, said.
“We’re excited to see the interest in Wright State and a Wright State degree climb amongst the region and amongst students around the state of Ohio,” she said.
Enrollment at Wright State has dropped significantly in the last 10 years. Between fall 2011 semester and fall 2021 semester, overall enrollment fell by about 41%, from 19,511 total students in 2011 to 11,469 in fall 2021, according to numbers that Wright State provided to the Ohio Department of Higher Education. Between fall 2016 and fall 2021, enrollment fell around 35%, according to the same numbers.
Wright State administrators cite a declining number of high school graduates in Ohio and the pandemic as contributors to the problem.
Nationwide, college applications for first-year, U.S. students are up 13.2% this year relative to pre-pandemic year 2019–20, with 1,106,777 applicants compared to 977,914 in 2019–20. That’s according to a recent survey that analyzed data from the Common App, a standardized application portal that allows students to apply to multiple universities. More than 900 universities, including Wright State, use the Common App portal.
