In a board of trustees meeting on Nov. 13, Roger Thompson, vice president of student services and enrollment management told the board he has seen the record for largest class broken in each of his previous 10 years working at the University of Oregon. 

He could not say the same for his 11th.
Freshman enrollment at UO fell by more than 13% from last year; 3,940 first-year students enrolled at the university this year compared to a record 4,560 in 2019, according to Thompson. 

In an email to The Daily Emerald, Thompson wrote, “prior to the pandemic, we believed that the freshman class of 2020 was set to be the largest in University of Oregon’s history.” 

Thompson said he wished that he could say that fall of 2020 would be the largest class on record, and would be close to reaching 4,800 first-year students. The number of incoming freshmen fell short of that by 860, with 4,902 total students and 962 transfers.

“COVID hit, and it made things very difficult,” said Thompson. “And you can see that instead of building on last year’s record class of 4,560 [first-year students] and being larger than that, we ended up coming in with the 11th-largest class.”

Thompson said that this number could have been lower, citing that a previous presentation projected four scenarios, ranging from the lowest enrollment number to the highest. The midpoint between these scenarios was 3,950 students, which is 10 students off from the enrollment number for first-year students in fall 2020. Thompson said the best case scenario would be a record number of applicants and enrolled students for Fall 2020.

Thompson examined the magnitude of this drop in comparison with the enrollment values from the past ten years. The enrollment value from 2000 was 2,788; 2019 had 4,560 new students, with 2020 dropping to 3,940. 

“You don’t like to see the scales go this way,” Thompson said about the decrease. “But this is how 2020 ended up.”

In terms of out-of-state students, Thompson said that UO enrollment remained consistent except for one particular drop.

“[In] California we saw big numbers of deferrals and deposit cancellations in late summer, and students elected to go someplace else,” Thompson said.

As to what caused this drop in enrollment, Thompson pointed to statistics regarding first-generation college students. UO saw a 2% decrease for first-generation Oregon residents, and a 4% decrease in non-Oregon resident first-generation students from 2019 statistics.   

Thompson said that UO has observed from surveys of admitted students that a lot of families went from being two-income families to one-income families — a shift driven by COVID-19. 
Additionally, Thompson said that UO’s shift from in-person engagement to virtual engagement impacted admissions. 

“One of the great assets we have at the UO is the beauty of our campus, so eliminating campus tours really did have a substantial negative effect on our recruitment efforts,” Thompson writes. “But we still believe it was the right decision, because we believe it kept people safer.”

Despite the drop in enrollment, Thompson pointed out that the average GPA of incoming first-year students was higher than last year, and therefore the highest in the past 20 years.

In terms of diversity, domestic minority students leveled at the same amount as last year at 34% percent of the incoming first-year students.  

In terms of the incoming freshman class, the enrollment office has been doubling down on its virtual space in terms of recruiting new students, and the incoming numbers are reportedly 16% higher than enrollment numbers last year before the pandemic hit. 

This depends on how UO will adapt to COVID-19 next fall, however.

“Like it did this fall, how the university is able to open and offer instruction next year will be critical in our recruitment efforts,” Thompson wrote. 

Speaking to the board of trustees, Thompson reflected on the fall enrollment decline.

“I am going to be really honest, we hoped our freshman class would be 800 students larger than it was. That is what we were on track for,” said Thompson. “This number for our team is very disappointing.”