Enrollment, when compared to last fall, is 14 students less at the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Yet again, SUNY Fredonia has fewer students than it did the previous year. However, the rate of decline is slowing, the university’s enrollment director showed this month at a College Council meeting.
Kathryn Kendall emphasized a line graph of SUNY Fredonia’s “head count” that showed a steady downward slope between 2019-20 and 2023-24 but something close to a flat line between 2023-24 and the current school year.
For fall 2024, the university has an unofficial head count of 3,206. That includes all students, full- and part-time. The count for fall 2023 was 3,220, just 14 more. The head count for fall 2018 was 4,655 and before this fall, it was steadily going down by hundreds of students each year.
The incoming class this year, including graduate and transfer students, is 996. “That’s about 100 ahead of where we were last year as an incoming class,” Kendall said. There are 698 first-year full-time students, which she said is an increase of about 50 from fall 2023.
SUNY Fredonia currently retains 76.4% of its students from their first year there, very close to the national average of 76.5%, Kendall added.
Kendall touted the efforts of university officials to reverse the downward trend in head count.
“If we did nothing, if we did not change any of our practices … we would be continuing down that slope,” she said. “We could have been below 3,000 easily. That’s the path we were on.”
Kendall went on that Fredonia has actually surpassed the target SUNY sets for its head count, which she said was 3,118 for fall 2025. “My job, though, is to make sure we are well above that and that we continue to relocate our resources and prioritize where we need to be putting our time and energy and money to attract students” who are good fits for the university and can be retained over time.
University President Stephen Kolison called Kendall’s graph showing a flattening of the head count “very critical.” That’s because the SUNY system will need to underwrite Fredonia’s budget for the next five years, and SUNY’s top officials will want to see that the university is turning its head count decline around, he said.
“I’m very pleased, and I think the board is very pleased, with the increased students we’re getting this year,” College Council President Frank Pagano said. “All in all, I see a more positive attitude in the school, the students and the faculty.”