New enrollment statistics show there are 1,000 fewer students enrolled at Iowa State this fall than there were last fall.

“I can say it would have been nice to have more [students], but given all of what’s happened this year — and I think that it’s been a challenging year for the university — I’m pleased with our numbers,” said Marc Harding, director of admissions.

The official fall enrollment released Thursday was 26,380, which is a 3.65 percent decrease from last year.

Iowa and Northern Iowa also recently released fall enrollment figures. Northern Iowa reported a decrease in enrollment, to 12,824 this fall from 13,441 in 2003, a 4.59 percent decrease. Iowa reported a fall enrollment of 29,745, which is exactly the same number of students that were enrolled last fall.

Harding said freshman enrollment is down because the number of high school graduates in Iowa has decreased.

“The Iowa Department of Education projects that next year there will be 1,200 fewer high school seniors,” Harding said.

He said that the decrease in next year’s high school graduates will make recruitment more competitive. Since there will still be the same number of colleges and universities for students to choose from, he said an enrollment decrease is inevitable for some of them.

Kathy Jones, ISU registrar, said she thinks there are a number of reasons that enrollment is down, including military leave, increased tuition, fewer high school seniors and large ISU graduating classes in the past few years.

Jones said the goal for next year is to use recruitment and retention to stabilize enrollment.

“We’re paying attention to retention across the campus,” Jones said.

“We’re trying to keep as many students as we can and help them to finish their programs here at Iowa State.”

Harding said the 2005—10 strategic plan and reaccreditation of the university will affect the new estimate of the optimal enrollment for Iowa State.

The enrollment statistics also showed some positive figures regarding minority enrollment and transfer students, Harding said.

“We’re living in a state that has about 6 percent minorities, and the university just enrolled a freshman class of 9.5 percent U.S. minority — that doesn’t include international students,” Harding said.

The total U.S. minority student enrollment is 2,055, or 7.8 percent of the student population, a 0.2 percent increase over last year.

Harding also said he was pleased with the number of Iowa community college transfer students this fall.

“Out of 1,429 transfer students, 848 of them came from Iowa community colleges,” Harding said. “We are serving Iowa and we continue to attract some of the best and brightest students from both in and out of state.”