ENROLLMENT OF UNDERGRADUATES UP AT UNIVERSITY

Fall semester undergraduate enrollment is up slightly at Southeast Missouri State University, but total enrollment decreased, university officials said Tuesday.

Headcount enrollment declined by 95, but undergraduate enrollment increased by 71 and total full-time equivalent enrollment (FTE) was up by 44 over last fall's first-day enrollment, university officials said.

The headcount after the first day of classes Monday stood at 8,380, down from the 8,475 students who were enrolled last year.

Last year's fall enrollment was up over 1989, reversing a trend of declining enrollments at the school.

Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast, said the lower enrollment this fall is a result of 166 fewer graduate students being enrolled in classes compared to the same semester last year.

A total of 7,863 undergraduate students were enrolled as of the first day of classes Monday, up from 7,792 last year.

FTE undergraduate enrollment stood at 6,918, up from 6,861 last year.

Total FTE enrollment stood at 7,137, up from 7,093 last year.

Wallhausen said university officials are pleased with the enrollment totals.

"I think the enrollment figures are very good news," he said. "Overall, I think everyone is very encouraged by the numbers. They don't show a major loss because of (tougher) admission standards. It shows that student recruiting efforts have paid off once again."

Wallhausen said the university rejected about 450 student applicants for the fall semester because they didn't meet the strengthened admission standards.

He said the university concentrates on recruiting undergraduate students, not graduate students.

"The success of the recruiting effort and the admission requirement impact is really shown with the increase in undergraduate headcount and FTE," said Wallhausen.

He said the decrease in graduate enrollment was primarily in the area of unclassified graduate students. "Unclassified graduates are primarily teachers who come to the university and take one night class or one off-campus class; usually a two- or three-hour course that will help them go up on the salary schedule at their schools."

As to undergraduates, the total number of beginning freshmen stood at 1,584 Monday, down from 1,664 last fall.

Returning freshmen students totaled 1,267, down from 1,368 last year.

But more sophomores, juniors and seniors were enrolled than for the 1990 fall semester, enrollment figures showed.

There were 1,764 sophomores enrolled, compared to 1,707 last year. A total of 1,493 juniors were enrolled, compared to 1,365 last fall. And 1,546 seniors were enrolled for the first day of classes, compared to 1,517 last year.

Wallhausen said the increase in total FTE enrollment shows that students are taking more classes.

FTE undergraduate enrollment is calculated by taking the total number of credit hours being taken by students and dividing by 15. The graduate FTE enrollment figure is calculated by dividing the credit hours figure by 12.

Wallhausen said the calculations assume that a full-time undergraduate would take 15 hours of classes while a full-time graduate student would take 12 hours of classes.

Wallhausen emphasized that the enrollment figures released Tuesday are only first-day figures. "People can still register for classes between now and Friday, so these figures will change," he said.

He said enrollment could increase by 300 to 500 students by the Sept. 20 final census date.

Last fall, the final enrollment was slightly more than 8,800. Wallhausen said he is "cautiously optimistic" that the university will end up having about the same final fall enrollment this year.