Molloy University in Rockville Centre saw a 37% increase in enrollment in its freshman class this semester, a major jump at a time when some colleges are struggling or even closing, university officials said Friday.
Freshman enrollment jumped from 620 students last year to 852 this fall at the Roman Catholic institution, Molloy officials said.
They attributed the uptick to several factors, including outreach to high school students as early as their sophomore year, sending out financial aid offers sooner, and instituting bilingual tours and information sessions aimed at Long Island’s growing Hispanic population.
“It’s very rare in my experience of 35-plus years in higher ed to see a 30-plus percent increase from one year to another,” said James Lentini, Molloy’s president. “You're just not seeing that out there."
Molloy’s increase comes as the number of college students across the country have generally declined.
“You have colleges struggling in some areas to try to recruit a smaller diminishing pool of high school students,” Lentini said. “Some schools are just not able to keep up.”
Nationwide, between fall 2010 and fall 2021, the total number of undergraduate college students in the United States dropped by 15%, from 18.1 million to 15.4 million, according to the National Center for Education Studies, the federal agency that collects statistics on schools.
However, the agency foresees a slight rebound, with the number projected to increase to 16.8 million between fall 2021 and fall 2031. That would be a 9% jump.
St. Joseph's University, New York, with campuses in Patchogue and Brooklyn, and which like Molloy was founded by religious sisters, said new first-year student enrollment dropped this fall by about 5% compared with last year. It went from 520 last year to 494 this year.
But overall enrollment, which includes graduate students, went up by 1%, from 3,899 last year to 3,933 this year, St. Joseph's said.
Other colleges in the region said they did not yet have their official fall enrollment numbers or did not respond to messages.
Molloy has one of the largest nursing programs in the country, graduating about 500 students a year, Lentini said. That — along with other health care programs — has helped keep enrollment strong, he said.
The school has had to reduce the acceptance rate in its nursing program from 80% to 70% because of high demand, he said.
Molloy’s overall acceptance rate is about 80%. It has a total of about 5,000 students this year.
The bulk of Molloy’s students come from Nassau County, where the Latino community is growing rapidly, school officials said. The university has instituted bilingual tours in English and Spanish to accommodate parents of prospective students, said Marguerite Lane, Molloy’s vice president for enrollment management. It also holds bilingual financial aid information sessions.