Laurentian University avoided a potentially worse backslide in its enrolment figures this school year thanks to strong uptake of its graduate programs - most especially among international students - as well as domestic students taking fully online programs.
In November, Laurentian finally exited insolvency restructuring under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) after 22 months under creditor protection, a process that has damaged LU’s enrolment, among many other impacts.
In 2021, Laurentian’s enrolment dropped 14 per cent year over year.
Shauna Lehtimaki, LU’s director of institutional planning, shared an update on Laurentian’s enrolment figures as of November 2022 at the university’s Jan. 17 senate meeting.
She said there was a year-over-year drop of four per cent in both Laurentian’s full-time equivalent (or FTE) student enrolment (which stands at 5,729) and its student headcount, which stands at 7,711 students.
(FTE is a calculation showing how many students would be attending if all were enrolled full time).
Laurentian has actually lost more than 1,300 FTE student enrolments since 2020, when that number stood at 7,090. In terms of headcount, Laurentian has lost more than 1,600 students since 2020, when it had a headcount of 9,323 students.
Lehtimaki said Laurentian was actually expecting an overall year-over-year decline in FTE enrolment of 14 per cent this fall, which means that LU’s enrolment was 11 per cent above what was anticipated.
She said the anticipated numbers were “extremely conservative.”
“It had been thought that we would actually potentially see a decrease as much as 20 per cent in our overall new numbers, and actually not see an improvement in our retention rate,” Lehtimaki said. “And that's not actually what happened.”
Overall new enrolment is up a total of nine per cent at Laurentian University.
Areas of growth include new graduate enrolment (up 78 per cent). Breaking down the new graduate enrolment, domestic graduate enrolment is up 32 per cent, and international graduate enrolment is up 235 per cent.
New domestic student enrolment in undergraduate fully online programs is up 50 per cent.
“So being able to say that we actually did see an increase overall in our new enrolments to the tune of about nine per cent is good because our new enrolment last year in the fall declined as much as 33 per cent,” Lehtimaki said.
A Jan. 18 internal email about the enrolment statistics from the Laurentian president’s office spoke about the areas of growth.
“The graduate enrolment increase is attributed to domestic students in multiple programs: M. Architecture, MBA (on-campus and online), M. Indigenous Relations, M. Nursing APN, M. Forensic Science, M. Science Communication, M. Social Work). International graduate enrolment increased within the on-campus MBA and the course-based M. Computer Science program,” said the email.
“Domestic undergraduate online programs are seeing new student growth in areas such as: Criminology, Equity, Diversity & Human Rights, Psychology, Sciences infirmières autorisées, Service social, and Indigenous Social Work.
“Finally, it is also encouraging to see the proportion of francophone students at Laurentian increase to 23 per cent of our student body (previously 21 per cent).
“Thank you to all who have played an important role in generating this new student growth.”
However, Laurentian’s overall returning enrolment is down nine per cent, driven primarily by the categories of domestic undergraduate students learning on campus, domestic graduate students (returning students in this category are down 16 per cent) and international undergraduate students.
Laurentian senate member Shannon Bassett asked Lehtimaki about the 235 per cent increase in new international graduate enrolment, and asked if there was targeted recruitment.
Total international student enrolment figures are also up 15 per cent at Laurentian.
Lehtimaki said there’s been some “very targeted activity” in countries such as China and India that has helped to bring in new international students, who pay higher tuition fees than domestic students, and are important to universities’ bottom lines.
Serge Demers, Laurentian’s registrar, said LU’s approach to international recruitment has changed, he said perhaps another factor is the loosening of pandemic restrictions around the world, and “pent up demand for people to move out of their home countries and into Canada.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s associate content editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.