08/07/2020
"Our re-enrollment numbers right now are better than they’ve been anytime in about the last decade,"
WLBK Local News
A top NIU administrator says the school’s student enrollment numbers for this year are “very healthy” despite COVID-19.
Matt Streb, chief of staff to NIU President Lisa Freeman, gave his take on what life will be like on campus during the pandemic as part of a DeKalb County UNITES webinar on Thursday.
Early in the year, Streb (in photo) says applications to NIU were up more than 30 percent from previous years. Then COVID-19 hit and national organizations were telling colleges to brace for a 15-percent hit to enrollment.
But despite the dire predictions, Streb says they’re excited with where NIU enrollment numbers stand so far.
“We didn’t know what things were going to look like. Were people going to come back? Were they going to feel comfortable coming back? How was that going to be?” says Streb. “What I can tell you is that our numbers right now look very healthy. We have a pretty significant increase, we’re expecting a pretty significant increase in incoming freshman this year compared to last year, and that’s a wonderful thing.”
Streb didn’t provide any hard numbers and cautions nothing is final until the official student count 10 days into the semester. Still, he says the numbers on returning students are also promising.
“Our reenrollment numbers right now are better than they’ve been anytime in about the last decade,” says Streb. “If you look at certain demographic groups, our reenrollment numbers are already surpassing where they were at, what we call, a 10-day count.”
Streb says NIU is also seeing a substantial increase in new students from DeKalb County. He says 54 DeKalb High School grads are going to NIU this fall.
“I think that’s really, really important,” says Streb. “We have an infatuation with Chicago. Chicago is great and Chicago is important. There’s nothing wrong with Chicago, but we’ve got to win our backyard.”
NIU is offering in-person, online and hybrid classes this fall.
Streb says it’s hard to say how many students will be in DeKalb. He notes someone taking all online classes could still be living in DeKalb and those not living in DeKalb could drive into campus a couple times a week for in-person classes.
