Moorhead prez: Part of enrollment drop due to tougher standards

Minnesota State University - Moorhead President Edna Mora Szymanski told the Star Tribune that some of its decline in enrollment was intentional:

In 2010, Minnesota State University Moorhead decided it was admitting too many unqualified students, and it started referring “large numbers” to community and technical colleges, said Moorhead President Edna Szymanski.

... The harsh truth, Szymanski said, is that for many years, about 15 to 20 percent of the freshmen admitted to Moorhead didn’t meet its published admissions standards. It was a common practice at many universities, she said, as they struggled to keep their classrooms full. The problem, she said, was that many of those students were failing.

So what's she referring to?

In large part, it's the policy behind the university's January 2011 closure of the Corrick Center for at-risk students, which I reported on at the time.

Szymanski told me Corrick students "comprised the bulk of that group.  However, there were others admitted under the 'individual review' policy."

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