UI president vows enrollment turnaround

BOISE – After three years of declining enrollment, the University of Idaho will see a turnaround starting next fall, school President Tim White predicts.

“I can tell you we’ll try to grow 1 or 2 percent a year for the next four or five years,” White said Friday. “The faculty know, the grounds workers know, the chairs know and the deans know that everybody’s got a nickel in this game.”

The university in Moscow has revamped its enrollment management division, replaced many of its public relations staffers, gone through three advertising campaigns and brought in an entirely new administration in the past four years, White said.

The shake-up was largely the result of chronic budget deficits and the university’s failed attempt to bring a satellite campus to Boise several years ago.

“They cut all the recruiters; they cut scholarships; they did a whole bunch of things to make ends meet,” White said. “It was a pretty big hit to the institution, so we’re paying the price for those decisions and actions of six or seven years ago.”

But now, White said, the school is poised for a recovery. Faculty members are calling high school students to pitch the scenic campus in north-central Idaho, and the university plans to ask lawmakers for additional scholarship money to bring in more low-income students.

White also reaffirmed his dedication to keeping Vandal athletics in the Western Athletic Conference – because WAC teams play in areas that are potential recruiting hot spots.

“We have a finite amount of money we’re going to spend on recruitment and advertising and we want to make sure we’re going to get the best on our investment,” he said.

That means targeting the cultural, curricular, financial and even faith-based reasons students are choosing not to go to college or to go elsewhere, he said.

The campus has an Islamic mosque, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stake house and religious institute and other religious programs, White said, but few prospective students know about the options.

Over the past three years, fall enrollment at the University of Idaho has dropped more than 8 percent, though the slide slowed in 2007 to about 1 percent from a 5.9 percent drop in 2006. The school has more than 11,600 students.

Idaho State University reported a 4.2 percent enrollment gain this year, and rival Boise State University’s enrollment has increased for the last three years, but White said Idaho boasts a higher graduation rate.

“We’re the third largest university and we give more degrees than any other place,” he said. “We’re pouring them out with degrees and they’re entering the work force.”