The 2017 class of first-time freshmen at the University of Missouri will be the smallest in almost 20 years as the Columbia campus endures another precipitous drop in enrollment.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an MU official said between 3,900 and 4,000 first-time students will pay the $300 enrollment fee due Monday. The incoming class of 4,780 for the fall 2016 semester was 23 percent smaller than 2015. The 2017 incoming class would be 40 percent smaller than the record first-time class that enrolled in 2014, a cohort that will begin graduating in May 2018.

On the record, MU officials have repeatedly said they could not make estimates for the fall because the past is not a reliable guide this year. The university has invested more in out-of-state recruiting while uncertainty about federal visa policies is cutting international interest.

In each of the past five years, the number of first-time freshmen enrolling for the fall semester has been within 100 of the number who pay the deposit by May 1. MU will be ready to make an official estimate for the fall this week, spokesman Christian Basi wrote in an email.

“We’ll need a few days to make sure the numbers are correct,” a process that will ensure no duplicates, he wrote. “Once that is done, we should be able to discuss what our upcoming class is looking like.”

After a faculty meeting in March, Basi and Provost Garnett Stokes said an early estimate was impossible. An estimate made in February 2016 led to across-the-board budget cuts of 5 percent and by May proved to be far too optimistic.

“We are working off a completely new base right now,” Basi said.

The last time first-time freshmen enrollment was below 4,000 was in the late 1990s, with 3,866 entering in August 1998. At that time, MU enrollment was about 23,000.

Overall enrollment, on campus and online, peaked in fall 2015 at 35,448. If past enrollment trends continue, MU could shrink to about 31,000 students in the fall, the smallest number since 2009.

The steps already being taken to account for shrinkage, however, are clear. At the beginning of April, the university announced that three residence halls, with a total of 531 beds, would be mothballed for the fall semester. That is in addition to four residence halls already shuttered since the spring of 2016.

The budget being prepared for the coming year recognizes a $23 million decline in tuition and fee revenue at current rates from a smaller enrollment. Increases proposed for a May vote by the Board of Curators would recover $14.5 million of that shortfall.

First-time freshman enrollments determine the size of future class cohorts. When fall semester counts are complete, the number of students counted as freshman is generally about 20 percent larger than the first-time student counts because of transfers of and students who did not earn enough credit their first year to be counted as sophomores.

This year, for the first time in more than a decade, the sophomore class is larger than the freshman class. It generally is about 80 percent of the freshman class of the previous year, for the same reasons the freshman class is larger than first-time students.

The senior class for a decade has generally been about 125 percent larger than the junior class the previous year, mainly due to five- and six-year students and transfers. The fall 2016 senior class, which will graduate next month, was the second-largest in campus history.

A campus that will be smaller by 4,000 to 5,000 students for the foreseeable future will leave landlords of student housing scrambling for renters. But it may ease some plans already put in motion by President Mun Choi and interim Chancellor Hank Foley.

Choi on Friday reported to the curators on his goals for increasing research and building new laboratories. His plans also call for examining degree programs to determine which should get more money and which should be eliminated.

“We have had a pattern of using those resources for specific programs,” Choi said to reporters after the meeting. “How do we redirect those resources for programs that actually elevate the university.”

Programs that don’t meet the mission or fall short of goals for excellence will be phased out, he said.

“We will be eliminating, phasing out programs that while they provide benefits, did not provide the” required “level of benefits to the university system,” Choi said.

On the Columbia campus, three committees are studying the future of programs, space needs and enrollment. After a faculty council meeting in March, Stokes said no programs would be eliminated that have students enrolled.

“Students are always assured completion of degrees,” she said. “Under accreditation standards, closing a program is a long process because there is a commitment to a student in a degree program.”

rkeller@columbiatribune.com

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