Numbers are out for Missouri State University’s fall semester, and there was a slight decline in systemwide enrollment. The headcount is 26,917 students – down 1.1% from last fall.
Undergraduate enrollment held nearly steady on the Springfield campus – down .9%. Graduate enrollment fell by 3.4%.
Missouri State continues to add dual credit enrollments, it said, due to the later start of Missouri high schools.
The college with the largest enrollment at MSU is the McQueary College of Health and Human Services, which grew 4.7% to 4,742 students this fall.
The College of Education also grew 2.3% to 1,644 students.
Dr. Dawn Medley, Missouri State’s vice-president for enrollment management, said in a statement that, “given the increased competition with the declining student population, both domestically and internationally, we feel very good about where we are and the foundation we have created on which to build.”
The university set new enrollment records for the system and Springfield campus last fall. System enrollment increased from 26,874 to 27,235 while enrollment on the Springfield campus increased from 25,038 to 25,238.
Medley was hired in 2025 to lead the university's student recruitment efforts. The 2025-2030 Missouri State strategic plan sets a goal of 30,000 students.
Medley recently told KSMU that their effort to recruit goes beyond the state boundaries. She said they're going to Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois and Texas "because those are all states where we think we can attract students, especially Texas. They have more high school graduates than they have seats in their colleges. So, we know that they can export students to us."
She said she'd confident the university can meet the 30,000 student enrollment goal.
"Where I will tell you that I think we need to be laser focused and really may struggle or be challenged is the population mix," she said. "And so, as we've seen over the course of the past few years, our dual credit students enrollment is taking off. We are working through the demographic cliff with our first year and our transfer students. How are we engaging adult students? How are we getting people to come back for graduate degrees?"
