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.
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.“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.”Areas of growth include new graduate enrolment .
“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.