Amber Schultz, Vice President of Enrollment Management, says enrollment is up 13 per cent at the Quad Cities campus in Moline, to 421.
"Students who have a majority of their classes physically on site at the Quad Cities campus, knowing full well that the number of students who use the Quad Cities campus is almost double that - it's much, much higher."
She says that's because many online students are from this area and use the local campus for advising, the library, and other services.
To keep the local enrollment growing, Dr. Schultz says Western Illinois University will have to recruit a wide range of students, including recent high school and community college graduates, and part-time undergraduate and graduate students.
"So more parternships with business and industry, more opportunities for a wide range of different mediums, like the online, the streaming, in-person, the whole range. And then continuing conversations with other partners to insure that we're meeting the needs of the region."
The university also reports the largest graduate student enrollment since 2008 and the largest number ever of international students.
The WIU board of trustees will hold its regular quarterly meeting at the Moline campus Thursday beginning at 9 am.
