ENROLLMENT STILL RISING AT SOME MISSOURI UNIVERSITIES

While Southeast Missouri State University has seen enrollment decline of late, some Missouri public universities are attracting more students.

The University of Missouri-Columbia began classes this fall with an enrollment of 21,687, up 150 from last fall.

Most of the increase was in undergraduate enrollment, largely due to gains in enrollment of black students and first-time freshmen. The university spent about $1 million on financial awards to about 270 black students.

First-time freshmen at the Columbia school numbered 3,672, up 25 percent from the 1993 figure. The number of black freshmen stood at 325, up 235 percent from last fall's 97.

The Columbia campus and the other three University of Missouri campuses at Kansas City, St. Louis and Rolla all have established themselves as selective institutions.

The Missouri Coordinating Board of Education wants the state's four-year, public colleges and universities to define themselves as open enrollment, moderately selective, selective or highly selective.

More restrictive admission standards have spurred enrollment drops at many colleges and universities and resulted in more students enrolling in community colleges, said James Gorham, vice president of enrollment development at Harris-Stowe State College in St. Louis.

Southeast, which has embraced the moderately selective admission standard, has seen its enrollment decline for several years. First-day enrollment last month stood at 7,673, down about 200 from the year before.

Out of Missouri's four regional universities, Southeast was the only school to see long-term enrollment decline. Southeast's headcount declined 11.4 percent between the fall of 1981 and the fall of 1993, while Central Missouri State, Northwest Missouri State and Southwest Missouri State University all experienced double-digit percentage growth.

However, enrollment dropped at nearly all of Missouri's public, four-year institutions from the fall of 1992 to the fall of 1993.

Officials at Southeast and many other schools say demographics are largely to blame for declining enrollment. There has been a smaller pool of high school graduates from which to draw in recent years.

Some schools already have implemented tougher admission standards, but others, like Southwest Missouri State in Springfield, are looking to phase them in over the next several years.

Schools like Missouri Western State College in St. Joseph and Central in Warrensburg have less restrictive admission policies. Still, preliminary enrollment figures indicate they have fewer students this fall than last.

At Central, initial fall enrollment was down about 400 from last year's 11,200 figure.

But Northeast Missouri State University in Kirksville -- the state's liberal arts school and the only highly selective, public institution in Missouri -- has experienced a small, but steady climb in enrollment in recent years.

Enrollment stands at more than 6,200, up about 150 over last fall. The school, however, isn't looking to get much larger.

"We are controlling the number of new students, the freshmen and the transfers, but retention keeps going up a little which we think is wonderful," said Kathy Rieck, the school's dean of admission and records.

Rieck said the school has managed to increase its enrollment even though northern Missouri has seen its population decline. "Virtually the northern half of the state has a lower population by county than they had in 1900," she noted.

Northeast, however, recruits students from throughout the state and nation. "I think we were one of the first in the state to really identify a market niche. We do attract a certain type of student," said Rieck.