The fall enrollment is official, and the big news is that the number of new undergraduate students is the highest it has been in the last six years.

Neumann enrolled a total of 470 new first-year and transfer students. This incoming class is the largest new student class since the university welcomed 485 new undergrads in 2020.

According to Jim Plunkett, associate vice president of undergraduate enrollment, the successful recruitment year was due to the good work of Neumann’s staff at strengthening the university’s messaging and building strong relationships with prospective students and their families.

“What the university accomplished was thanks to regular and timely electronic and interpersonal communication with new students,” he explains. “We used a variety of modalities, including emails, print, texts, calls and on-campus events to communicate the university’s mission, our accessibility and our affordability.”

The enrollment success was replicated in the graduate admissions office with new students in online degree completion programs jumping by 33% and new graduate students increasing by 8.7%.

According to Bettsy McKlaine, associate vice president of enrollment for graduate, adult and online programs, several factors contributed to the enrollment growth.

“We aligned our digital marketing with our on-the-ground strategy,” she says, “and instituted a graduate tuition freeze -- even reducing tuition for select programs.”

The addition of a new online BA in Education also helped build a successful fall.