What really caused MSU-Moorhead’s enrollment decline?

Earlier this month, Minnesota State University - Moorhead President Edna Mora Szymanski told the Star Tribune that part of the campus' enrollment decline -- a factor in its $4.9 million budget deficit -- was due to a tightening of admission standards:

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.

Now the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead says that may not be the case:

… Only a fraction of the school’s enrollment losses since 2009 – the most among its four-year peers in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System – can be attributed to the reduction in students who did not meet admissions requirements.

You can read the full story here.

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