I'm so surprised that parents don't want to send their kids to Mizzou.

You don't think it has anything to do with the protests?



Enrollment on the University of Missouri?s Columbia campus is expected to decline more than 7 percent in the fall and budget cuts will require the elimination of up to 400 jobs, interim Chancellor Garnett Stokes said Monday at a budget forum.

The enrollment decline estimate is the first provided by MU officials for overall fall numbers. The university has already said it expects first-time freshman enrollment to decline by almost 18 percent.

For the school year that ended last week, enrollment at MU was 33,266, down 6.1 percent from the previous year?s record. If Stokes? projection of a 7.4 percent decline is accurate, enrollment in the fall will be about 30,800, the lowest in nine years.


The university is having difficulty with graduate and undergraduate enrollment. Applications for graduate school are down almost 11 percent, said Jeni Hart, assistant vice provost for doctoral and graduate studies.

For undergraduate enrollment, the university in the past has tried to explain it as a combination of smaller high school graduating classes in Missouri, better recruitment by schools in other states and the aftermath of the November 2015 demonstrations and resignations of system President Tim Wolfe and Columbia campus Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.

The university has studied the issue and now sees that it is almost all due to negative publicity since the demonstrations, said Pelema Morrice, vice provost for enrollment.


?It is clear from what we learned thus far that the vast majority of our undergraduate enrollment concerns are closely tied to our public perception issues throughout the state and throughout the country,? he said.