The enrollment rate for on-campus students this semester at Ferris is the highest it has been since 2021.
While the rate is not as high as it was before COVID-19, the enrollment rate for on campus students continues to climb as the years progress.
The impact of COVID-19 hit Ferris’ enrollment rate hard in the Fall semester of 2021, causing a decrease in enrollment. According to the Fall Enrollment Summaries, the total amount of students enrolled on campus in 2021 was 7,773, which was a 417 drop in attendance from 2020. However, according to the summary for 2023, the total amount of students enrolled is 7,890, which is an increase of 117 students since 2021.
In addition to this, there was a decrease in online enrollment from 2021 to this semester, as there were 737 students enrolled online in 2021, while this semester there were only 616, which is a decrease of 121 since 2021.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, there was still not a big change in enrollment in teh Spring 2023 semester, however there was a growing increase of roughly 0.2% of enrollment increases happening at four-year universities. The impact was slightly higher at community colleges, which had an increase of roughly 2%. While the increase was small, the National Student Clearinghouse research Center, found that little increases in enrollments were present among all different degrees, including certificates.
Heather Ellison, the assistant manager at The Quad, has been working on campus since Fall 2021. While she was not initially here at the beginning of Fall 2021 year; she did note some differences she has seen since the beginning of her time at Ferris.
“I feel like every year since COVID is officially done with it seems like there’s more and more students on campus,” Ellison said. “We’ve definitely gotten a lot more people wanting to work on campus too.”
Criminal justice senior, Jalen Johnson, noted one of the major differences that he has seen on campus.
“I had about six seven people in my classroom,” Johnson said. “So, it’s changed a lot because it’s way more people in my classroom, so it’s changed. I don’t want to say how to learn better when it was like a shorter amount of people but it’s definitely like You’re more active and you will have more relationship with a professor when it’s that way.”
Johnson also explained that he believed that the campus feels less active now compared to his freshman year, as there seems to be less events happening and less people socializing. Johnson believes that the cause of this could be a few different things, but COVID-19 may have impacted how the campus atmosphere has shifted to become quieter than before COVID-19. He has seen things slowly starting to get more student involvement as well and believes that Ferris is beginning to return to its pre-COVID-19 self.