BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU and other area public colleges saw small student enrollment gains this fall while Southern University’s enrollment continued to decline. That’s according to figures reported Wednesday.
Southern’s enrollment for the fall semester dipped below 7,000 students, a drop of more than 5 percent since last year, according to figures reported to the Board of Regents.
In addition to LSU, The Advocate reports that Baton Rouge Community College, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Southeastern Louisiana University and Capital Area Technical College all saw minor enrollment gains this year.
Despite fewer freshman and graduate students compared to last year, LSU had a small overall enrollment gain from 28,771 students to 28,985, because of more returning students, largely from LSU’s near-record freshman class last year.
Southern’s enrollment declined from 7,294 students last year to a 6,915 headcount this fall. But, last week, Chancellor James Llorens feared the enrollment might have dropped as low as 6,700 students.
“It’s better than we feared,” Llorens said. The initial projection was for 7,000 students.
Llorens attributed additional losses to problems with the new BANNER registration and financial aid process that stalled students receiving money to pay their bills.
