"George Washington University’s enrollment is down about 17% from last year, an early indication of the impact of Covid-19 on U.S. higher education.
President Thomas LeBlanc told a faculty senate meeting that preliminary undergraduate enrollment is about 1,000 students below its target of 10,126, a spokeswoman said Monday. Last year, the school in Washington, D.C., drew 12,031 undergrads in the fall, including 1,416 from abroad, and 11,008 were full-time students.
Provost Brian Blake said in an interview that he expects the enrollment drop to be lessened when final numbers are tabulated next month." …
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/post/discussion/college-life
Last year they announced
“ GWU is taking a surprising and radical step that has prompted deep faculty anxiety: It is choosing to shrink — a lot.
Over the next five years, the private university just west of the White House aims to slash the undergraduate population of its D.C. campuses 20 percent.”
Mission nearly accomplished.
Their “target” was already 8-15% below last year’s number (depending on which of the confusing numbers in the initial post is used). If they actively took steps to reduce enrollment, then it’s disingenuous to completely ascribe the decline to the pandemic, as in the title.
Doesn’t it seem odd that they won’t know how many students they have for another month - didn’t classes start nearly a month ago?