WSU Vancouver’s spring enrollment rises to high of 3,271

Spring enrollment at Washington State University Vancouver hit another high, with 3,271 students on the Salmon Creek campus this semester.

That is a 3.2 percent increase over the 2016 spring numbers.

Spring classes started on Jan. 9, but official enrollment numbers were announced this week. The system – which includes five campuses and an online university – registered 28,240 students statewide, up 2 percent from the spring semester of 2016.

The spring totals do not represent all-time enrollment highs. WSU Vancouver’s enrollment peaks each year in the fall and then declines. WSU Vancouver’s all-time high came at the start of the 2016-2017 academic year, when 3,426 students were enrolled.

“That’s normal. We have a large class in the fall,” said Laurel Rea, WSU Vancouver’s director of enrollment.

“Our retention rate from fall to spring looks good,” she said. The campus retained 90.9 percent of its new freshmen from fall 2016 and 91.5 percent of its new fall transfers.

That’s comparable to the retention rates at the WSU system’s flagship campus in Pullman, about 92 percent.

In a news release, WSU President Kirk Schulz said: “These numbers tell us we are not simply enrolling record numbers of new students. They tell us the vast majority of those students are succeeding and continuing their studies.”

That student success actually was a factor in more than 200 students leaving WSU Vancouver in mid-year.

“Two-hundred-and-five students graduated in December,” Rea said.