After student protests rocked the campus of the University of Missouri in 2015, student enrollment has dropped significantly. The student protests became national news, as a college professor named Melissa Click shoved a student journalist who sought access to cover the protests on racism.
“Enrollment at the University of Missouri continued a decline that began after campus protests in November 2015, with this fall’s enrollment the lowest since 2008,” the Associated Press reported last week. “Official numbers released Wednesday show the university attracted 20,870 students this fall, down 12.9 percent since a record set in 2015.”
“Missouri did slightly better than expected in attracting new freshman but the total of 4,134 is down 546 from last fall and 2,060 fewer than 2015.”
Mizzou, meanwhile, is spinning the numbers so wildly that they must be getting dizzy. “Preliminary figures for enrollment at the University of Missouri indicate that Mizzou students are enjoying a successful collegiate career,” Mizzou proclaimed on its website in August. “MU began classes today with an enrollment of more than 30,000 students.”
“This includes a freshman class of more than 4,100 students and the second highest retention rate in MU’s history at 86.6 percent. The retention rate measures how many freshmen from the 2016-17 school year are returning to Mizzou.”
It is a bit reminiscent of a Cold War era joke told about the Soviet Union after one of their many purges: “There are now fewer but better communists.”
