New enrollment, retention, work placement focus of MU committee

A University of Missouri committee wants to increase new student enrollment to 6,000 and place 95 percent of graduates in a job within six months of finishing school.

Those are two of the five draft goals the Strategic Enrollment Management committee presented at a town hall earlier this week. The committee is now taking feedback from the public on those goals, and hopes to finalize them by Dec. 4.

The committee, which includes vice provost of enrollment Pelema Morrice, hopes to have the ways the school can accomplish the goals by the end of the school year. The list includes five goals, all to be achieved by 2023:

increase the number of degree and certificate completions to 10,000 place 95 percent of graduates in a job within six months of completing school increase new student enrollment, including freshmen and transfer students, to 6,000 improve first-year student retention rates to 93 percent improve four-year undergraduate graduation rate by 20 percent

MU has credited part of their budget crunch to lower enrollment of new students than in years past. The Fall 2017 semester saw 5,136 new students enrolled, down from the 7,298 students of the Fall 2015 semester.

The degree and certificate completions refer to the number of those earned by students at the school. MU awarded 9,150 of them last school year.

Chancellor Alexander Cartwright introduced new scholarships and fee waivers for low-income students this semester as a way to boost enrollment and make the school more affordable.

You can view the numbers and goals the committee released here, as well as a link to send feedback on the draft goals.