President Bill Perry is pleased with the 12,040 students Eastern enrolled for the 2008-09 school year.

Enrollment numbers, which were released Thursday, decreased slightly from 12,179 students last year to 12,040 this year. Last year’s total was the second highest enrollment in Eastern’s history.

Perry said he was pleased with the number because it is around his optimal number, 12,000 students, for the university.

“When it was higher. that put some strain on our faculty resources and our physical resources,” Perry said. “To come down from that level was important.”

He added that after he looked at student-to-faculty ratios, facilities and classrooms he determined that 12,000 students were about the right level for Eastern.

He said he also looked at tuition and state revenue because the university needs sufficient enrollment to support its operations.

“What we were trying to do is have a soft landing at 12,000 and not to undershoot,” Perry said. “Our goal going forward is to keep our enrollment around that 12,000 level.”

Undergraduate enrollment de-creased from 10,410 last year to 10,261 this year. Freshmen enrollment increased from 2,581 last year to 2,649 this year. Graduate student enrollment increased slightly from 1,769 last year to 1,779 this year.

Perry said the reason undergraduate enrollment is down from last year is because of that soft landing.

“There will always be a little fluctuation there,” he said.

There is no cause for alarm in the decrease of that number, Perry added.

Minority student enrollment, however, continued its increase from 1,488 students last year to 1,655 students this year.

Minority students now make up 13.75 percent of Eastern’s enrollment.

“We’ve been successful in enhancing the diversity of the applicant pool,” Perry said.

At Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting, Brenda Major, director of admissions, said the economy was killing Eastern when trying to enroll students this year.

Perry said that problem not new to Eastern.

When the economy is weaker, a high school graduate might want to receive a post-secondary education because job opportunities might be limited, he said.

“On the other hand it does cost money to go to school, and costs have been going up,” Perry said. “It’s that affordability issue. that comes into play.”

He added the state of the economy does influence the affordability issue of higher education.

Because of the economy, Perry said more students are considering going to a community college after high school instead of a university.

“In the long run, we will probably see our mix of undergraduates change a little bit over time,” he said. “I think we’ll have more applicants as transfer students, but I’m planning on our work to continue to enhance our undergraduate education to create more demand for us.”

Although incoming freshmen and transfer students had to deal with a 12-percent increase in tuition this year, Perry said Eastern still remains one of the most affordable public universities in Illinois.

He said the demand for Eastern would increase regardless of the economy because of the quality of education the university offers.

Perry said he thinks the university will get more applications because of the increase in quality of specialty programs, such as the honors program, and academic programs, whether it is psychology or art.

“The key is to keep building academic quality,” he said. “But we want to make sure we remain a school of opportunity.to make it feasible for them to come here and to make it affordable for them to come here.”

Stephen Di Benedetto can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].