EIU’s on-campus enrollment dropped 9.5% this semester compared to last spring, with sharply falling international enrollment and a growing freshman class size highlighting the changes.
This is the lowest on-campus enrollment has been in the past 10 years, with 3,660 students compared to last spring’s 4,044.
Eastern’s overall enrollment is down 2.13% compared to last spring. This semester saw a total of 8,013 students, including 3,728 undergraduates, 1,240 graduate students and 3,045 high school dual credit students. Eastern had 8,187 students overall last spring.
Vice President for Enrollment Management Josh Norman said part of the decline came from the loss of 313 international students this semester compared to last spring, which is a trend he predicts will continue into next spring.
“We’re going to hit the bottom,” said Norman. “I think next year will be the year we hit the bottom of the international enrollment decline, and it’ll just be a matter of whether or not we can offset that with domestic and non-traditional enrollments.”
This semester saw 245 international students enrolled, compared to 558 enrolled last spring, a 56.09% decrease between semesters.
This is the lowest number of international students enrolled in at least the past 10 years. The second lowest number of international students enrolled occurred in 2021 with 262.
After 2021, international student enrollment increased each spring up until spring 2024, which saw 796 international students before a 29.9% decrease into spring 2025.
Norman said he was expecting to see more of a decline in international enrollment and remains optimistic despite the declines that did occur.
“As much as it’s hard for me to see it decrease at all, there were a lot of upsides from the standpoint of the growth in transfer and the growth in first year students,” Norman said.
Freshman enrollment saw a 4.94% increase this semester compared to last spring. This is the first time since 2023 that freshmen enrollment has risen in a spring semester.
A total of 757 freshmen students were enrolled at Eastern in spring 2023 before falling to 665 total freshmen in spring 2024.
Freshmen enrollment has slowly climbed back up since then, with 648 total freshmen enrolled in 2025 and 680 total freshmen enrolled this semester.
Norman said these increases are a result of 100 different plans to retain and attract students, including club awards and grants, sending more direct mail than last spring and campus tours.
“We’ve got to continue to innovate,” Norman said. “We’ve got to continue to create programs that attract students.”
Of these plans, Norman said social media presence and the use of Navigate360 helped increase freshman enrollment.
Navigate360 is a platform that allows Eastern to better communicate with students through email, SMS and phone calls, and it can log the information from those communication methods in one place, according to Norman.
Director of Marketing and Communications Christy Kilgore said the challenge this semester with enrollment was not just competing with other colleges but the idea of going to college itself.
“There’s always been people that don’t go to college, but now we have to sell not even necessarily Eastern Illinois University but just sell the idea of going to college [and] that it’s worth it and value for your life,” Kilgore said.
Nationally, public university enrollment has been on the rise for the past three years, according to a report from National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Kilgore said one of the strategies to market the idea of college rather than EIU is by highlighting what can be done with a degree postgraduation.
She also said the spring semester is usually marketed more towards transfer students. This semester, undergraduate transfer student enrollment increased with an additional 29 students, 19% more than last spring.
Off-campus enrollment also increased this semester by 5.83% compared to last spring.
Norman said this increase comes from the business administration program having a fully online option in addition to its in-person option.
Additionally, Norman said prerequisites previously requiring in-person attendance are not mandatory anymore, allowing for easier access to courses.
“A student can come in with an associates and not have to have specific courses in order to enter that program, so it’s seen significant growth,” Norman said.
Norman also said domestic first-year students increased by five students this semester, which is an increase from last spring. Domestic first-year students refers to students within the country entering college for the first time.
Norman said the cause for this increase is still to be determined as the evaluation is still ongoing.
According to a press release on this semester’s enrollment, five departments saw growth compared to last spring.
These departments are the school of business, the department of nursing, the school of technology, the department of psychology and the department of biology.
Norman said these departments saw increased enrollment due to the demand, determined by student inquiries, that students have for their courses, with nursing being a standout among the five departments.
“Nursing is just a pure demand situation where we have a lot of students who want to be a part of our nursing program,” he said. “Every year we’ve had a full cohort, we’ve had a 100% NCLEX pass rate, which continues to create more demand.”
NCLEX is an exam given to nursing students to award them their licensure.
Norman said this exam is important to enrollment because students in the nursing major have a desire to get proper accreditation for their career post college. Having this program allows students to know the major can deliver on their needs, he said.
Norman said he is looking forward to enrollment stabilizing after next year being the bottom end of the international student decline.
“We’ve got more FAFSA, and we’ve had 10% more visits and more people on campus,” he said. “It all seems to indicate that we’re going to have a bigger first year cohort.”
Luke Brewer can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].
