Southeast's enrollment up 3 percent for semester

Southeast Missouri State University has a record 8,971 students enrolled this spring semester, up 3 percent from a year ago.

The record is for the spring semester. Southeast's overall record enrollment occurred last fall when 9,352 students were enrolled.

In contrast to the fall enrollment record, school officials said little about the spring record, choosing to concentrate on the numbers compared to a year ago.

School officials said enrollment is up 258 students from the start of classes Jan. 14.

Final enrollment figures show Southeast has 7,593 undergraduate students, up 2.1 percent from a year ago. Total graduate enrollment stands at 1,378, up 7.7 percent., school officials said.

Dr. Pauline Fox, vice president of administration and enrollment management, said the university not only has more students, but those students are taking more classes.

Undergraduate and graduate students combined are enrolled in 97,792 credit hours of classes, up 4.1 percent from a year ago.

Fox and other school officials welcomed the higher enrollment. "It's another semester's worth of data that says we are moving ahead," Fox said.

Southeast has 1,760 returning freshmen this semester, up 8.2 percent. Southeast's junior class rose to 1,571 students, up 10.5 percent. The university has 1,954 seniors, up 3.4 percent.

The number of beginning freshmen dropped 11.5 percent to 116 students. Southeast has 1,500 sophomores, down 1.3 percent.

Graduate students include 794 master's students who have declared their fields of study, up 12 percent from a year ago.