DeKALB – Northern Illinois University’s freshman class has grown by 12%, while overall enrollment dipped by 3%, largely attributed to pandemic-related retention challenges, university officials said of the 10-day enrollment data released Thursday.

“There is so much joy at having the students back,” NIU President Lisa Freeman said in an on-campus interview Thursday from Altgeld Hall. “Looking out and seeing the life on campus, the students going to class, the students posing at the big red NIU letters. Actually, I clapped for joy the first time I had to stand in line at Starbucks because it was just so great to see the Holmes Student Center filled with students.”

By the numbers

According to 10-day enrollment numbers released by the university, the 12%, or 238-student, jump in freshman enrollment is the largest NIU has seen in freshman classes in two decades. The freshman class has 2,285 students. There was a 30% increase in applications for enrollment this fall.

NIU enrollment peaked over the past decade in 2009, when there were 24,424 students enrolled and has since trended downward, according to records. In 2018, enrollment was at 17,169, and came in at 16,609 in 2019.

A 2020 increase was recorded despite the global pandemic, bolstered by a freshman class that added 160 students and brought the total enrollment to 16,769. That growth, however, was again crippled this year, which officials attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current headcount now stands at 16,234 for fall 2021, and while the freshman class grew, the decrease in overall enrollment reflects numbers in undergraduate and graduate programs.

The 3% overall decrease in enrollment was felt most in those who are the first in their family to go to college, Freeman said, as well as a decline in working professionals who might normally seek an additional degree while holding a full-time job. The decrease is attributed to the many challenges of balancing work, school and life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Freeman said.

“For example, a teacher who’s trying to get a certificate, this is probably not the year for them to really take on extra courses,” Freeman said. “On the undergraduate side, the students who didn’t enroll at the rate we normally see are first generation and first year.”

In late 2018, when Freeman was appointed as the first woman president, university leadership devised a strategic enrollment management plan, with a goal to enroll 18,000 students by 2023, grow online courses and prioritize marketing the institution to students.

There also are more students living on campus than there have been in five years, according to the data, with 3,694 students in campus housing.

New master’s program enrollment numbers have grown by 28%, and new doctoral students are up by 22%.

Freeman said there’s also been a jump in international students living in DeKalb, which she said “has always been an amazing community.”

NIU officials on Thursday attributed the enrollment numbers to a more holistic approach to admission: This is the first full year, not barring the 2020 pandemic year, where admission applications have not required standardized test scores scores such as SAT or ACT tests. New steps also have been implemented to improve financial aid access and on-campus learning amid the pandemic’s lingering presence.

Pandemic-era changes also will be making a come back for the better, said Beth Ingram, NIU’s provost and executive vice president.

“We’ve learned a lot of lessons over COVID about how we can better support our students, and how we can support them as individuals,” Ingram said. “We know that advising is extremely important to students, that they talk to their advisers about their academic plans. ... What we found out is that students are more likely to show up and interact with their advisers if we gave them the option of doing it virtually. So we will continue to offer virtual advising.”

Ingram said the university also was awarded a $12,000 grant from the Illinois Equity Attainment Initiative, which brought in more math tutors to help students including incoming freshmen who may have experienced a learning loss due to the fluid and challenging school realities of 2020. Over the past year, NIU also received $7.4 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act funding to address student needs, including access to technology and other resources, during the pandemic.

The university’s merit-based scholarship process also has drawn more students to DeKalb who may not otherwise have access to higher education, offering financial aid to students based on GPA instead. More than half the freshman class, 70%, or 1,614 freshmen, are receiving merit-based scholarships, Freeman said.

All of that is in the name of “access and equity,” Freeman said.

Vaccine mandate

With 10 days to go until the newly extended deadline for Gov. JB Pritzker’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate, which requires all students and educators in higher education to receive the vaccine as the state grapples with a new viral wave of cases due to the highly contagious delta variant, NIU reports high vaccination numbers.

As of Thursday, about 90% of NIU employees – the university is the city of DeKalb’s largest employer – are fully vaccinated, and more than 80% of students, Freeman said. Three percent of students were allowed an exemption due to medical or religious reasons, she said.

Before the governor’s executive order, the university already had announced that students would be required to get vaccinated.

“The governor’s announcement mirrored what we were already doing very, very closely,” Freeman said. “And those numbers are rising daily, because when I said vaccinated I meant fully vaccinated. The indoor masking is not getting pushback at all. We’re taking this really multilayered approach.”

Freeman, who heralded the governor and state’s “science-based sensible approach toward public health,” said NIU also is continuing mandatory surveillance testing using the University of Illinois-created SHIELD testing, along with surveillance testing, enhanced sanitation protocols and HEPA filters in the classrooms.

“And then we have the Protect the Pack mindset of do things for each other, take care of each other, if you have symptoms don’t ignore them, get tested,” Freeman said. “And I think those things coming together are going to go a long way. Obviously, no one can control the virus, but we can control what our community does, and this is a community that cares.”

This story was updated with additional information at 7:50 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021.