Keene State beat its 2024 budget projections for enrollment, as Feb. 14 marked R+30 or registration plus 30 days, a benchmark measure.
The college increased its undergraduate population from 2,521 in spring 2023’s R+30 numbers, to 2,546. KSC also saw gains with its graduate population, increasing from 96 to 114. Overall, the student population increased by 1.6% or 43 students.
KSC’s budget numbers, which are a baseline expectation of what enrollment will look like year-to-year, showed the college with 2,425 undergraduates and 98 graduate students totaling 2,523. The numbers would have represented a 0.27% decrease, or a loss of 94 students, in enrollment overall.
KSC President Melinda Treadwell said the growth in the graduate student population can be attributed to smoother enrollment pathways.
“The majority of grad students want to know the school, the faculty and they want a decision quickly,” Treadwell said.
MB Lufkin, vice president for enrollment and student engagement, said the retention of first-year students was a key factor in the increase.
“All the projects and programs that we’re working on to make sure that first-year students love Keene are working,” Lufkin said.
One of the initiatives to ensure first-year students feel supported at the college is the roster verification process, Lufkin said. “We have a great system in place now to indicate if students within the first few weeks of classes … that helps us get an intervention strategy so that if someone is here but they’re not attending classes regularly, we can offer supports,” she said.
A second initiative KSC is seeing the effects of is a marketing push that started in the summer of 2023, Lufkin said.
The Equinox previously reported that the University System of New Hampshire (USNH) Board of Trustees allocated $350,000 toward the campaign.
“We’ve really aligned our brand messaging and clarified our brand to make sure that we our focused in the right way and that we focus our social media on prospective students,” Lufkin said.
Going forward, Lufkin said classroom and residence hall renovations, as well as athletics investments will show improvement with enrollment numbers.
“The numbers for the fall are really looking positive, the only caveat to that is the delays with the FAFSA,” she said.
Nathan Hope can be contacted at
nhope@kscequinox.com
