Both the lower retention and the higher incoming transfer stats were probably assisted by the many athletes in the transfer portal.
Which points out a troubling factor in my opinion. Where would we be without athletics? My guess is that of the new 660 undergrad students as well as some of the graduate (fifth and sixth year athletes) that the total recruited by coaches exceeded 125. This means that the recruiting staff brought in a net 435? How bad is that??
It is also important to note that not every sport is going to have massive turnover rates. "The big 3" seem to take up a lot of turnover while Olympic sports do not see high turnover. Whether the turnover rates in the big 3 are significant enough to affect enrollment heavily is left up for interpretation
The big 3 being football, basketball(men's and women's), and baseball
The new restrictions on International students put on by the current administration no doubt heavily impacted Valpo. A picture posted by Valpo showing the new class of international students was posted on Facebook. It included 21 students, probably half of which were athletes. I can spot Carter in the background. So maybe 10 or perhaps 15 new international students? That has got to be a HUGE disappointment particularly in that they typically pay full ticket.
The new restrictions on International students put on by the current administration no doubt heavily impacted Valpo. A picture posted by Valpo showing the new class of international students was posted on Facebook. It included 21 students, probably half of which were athletes. I can spot Carter in the background. So maybe 10 or perhaps 15 new international students? That has got to be a HUGE disappointment particularly in that they typically pay full ticket.
This decline is due almost exclusively to external factors that are killing international enrollments across the country. I have yet to hear of any school that isn't being impacted, including high prestige schools that have been magnets for international enrollment.
The census numbers have been recorded. Apparently, the slight expected melt between first day of classes and the census date happened, and the total of new-student undergraduates is 645 (true freshmen: 413). There are 175 new grad students. Total university enrollment: 2071 undergrad, 380 grad. Full data can be found at the following link:
https://www.valpo.edu/about/institutional-effectiveness/institutional-research/enrollment-data/
The fall 2025 census numbers is more concrete evidence that Valpo’s enrollment strategy has failed. I’ve yet to see anything from leadership acknowledging this fact.
We’ve all but given up recruiting from historical groups that provided a large number of students. We’ve stopped recruiting from areas that previously provided large number of students (St. Louis). We’ve closed down an alumni network that recruited potential students (VAN). It’s as if the leadership has contempt for the university and wants to run it into the ground.
Valpo has attempted to appeal to everyone, which results in appealing to no one. Remember the claims that changing the mascot would help increase enrollment? Of course, we’ll hear excuses about the enrollment cliff and other things out of their control. But Valpo’s choices over the past 15 years have caused us to get here.
Once again. If Valpo had followed this "Lutheran Fundamentalist" mindset people on here are so quick to advocate for, the school would be closed already. Alienating Alumni is inexcusable don't get me wrong, but the problems facing the university have little to do with theology shifts (which haven't taken place) and have everything to do with overspending and false promises/unreachable goals by previous administrations
If you want a sign out front that says "Lutherans Only LCMS Preferred" feel free to advocate for such. You will find your time and money wasted in the process.
This is yet another year-over-year decline for:
- total university enrollment (from 2,598 in 2024 down to 2,451 in 2025)
- total undergrads (from 2,142 in 2024 down to 2,071 in 2025)
- total new students (freshman + transfers) (from 675 in 2024 to 645 in 2025)
- true freshman (from 480 in 2025 to 413 in 2025) (I'm calculating this by adding all the 'freshmen' in each college from the 'New Student' by Semester page; I guess my number is lower than Valpopals since maybe some of the 'sophomores' by credit not factored into my tally are actually first-yr students? Or where are you getting the 515?)
I continue to look for signs that we have hit the bottom of some inverse bell shape, but not seeing it... sigh.
In parsing the internal shifts.... Although A&S continues to decline, the most surprising thing to me is the ongoing enrollment decline in Engineering, given that there is so much talk of Engineering's strength and that they are given so much benefit-of-the-doubt around enrollment and ROI, and thus have seen nothing like the cuts that A&S has undergone these last 5 years.
On the one hand, I am glad to see the Nursing school enrollments grow since ANY growth for Valpo is good. But on the other hand, this growth in nursing enrollments is true at pretty much every college across the country, and it depresses me to see a whole generation accepting and pursuing a future in wiping the butts of the elderly. Of course, it's necessary on a social level and some combination of noble/wise on an individual level that they will fill what are certain to be stable jobs... but it just strikes me as sad to see so many young adults already pivoting to accept their generational role as caretakers for the booming geriatric care crisis, and fewer and fewer imagining for themselves any creative future as engineers, writers, civil servants, teachers, or anything else more future-oriented. The upward nursing enrollments is a relief for Valpo - but its a symptom of a population that is inverting towards more and more old people and fewer young working-age people, falling numbers of college-age students, falling birthrates, and a pretty severe labor problem on the horizon for decades to come.
Rez, I'm not Lutheran and don't believe a Lutheran fundamentalist position would be good for Valpo. BUT, you're simply misunderstanding Valpo to suggest that such a culture pervades at Valpo or that people here on this eBoard are promoting it. VU has been a pretty wishy washy place when it comes to Lutheranism for a looong time (again, I say this as a non-Lutheran with really no dog in that fight); moreover, it is almost always for strategic enrollment reasons that people here (like MJ above) invoke questions of Lutheran identity/values, rather than in service of ideological blinders. I think it's categorically wrong and distorting to cast discussion of Lutheran heritage as "fundamentalist," when that's not what's going on in either the reality of campus culture or in the discourse here online.
Last note/edit: What we aren't seeing anywhere in these posted enrollment stats is any disaggregation of the Honors College's enrollment trends or declines (?), which is significant since indeed they don't have any of their 'own' students, and there are ongoing questions around the cost/benefit of maintaining that entire college structure (deans, admins, programs) and its own set of faculty basically parallel with and reduplicating parts of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Sigh. No one has advocated for a “Lutheran Fundamentalist” university. Valpo was never that type of place. Also, the idea that Valpo was exclusively Lutheran is laughable. The idea that Valpo would have closed already isn’t close to being true and reflects your discomfort/bias more than anything else.
This isn’t about theology, this is about business decisions. You had a method that was working. But Valpo decided to walk away. Maybe those in charge felt uncomfortable about the heritage of the university. Or maybe they just didn’t understand their own business. Regardless, time has proven it was a bad decision.
(...Or where are you getting the 515?)
It is 413 true freshmen; 513 was a typo. I have corrected the number.
MJ and VUI have nailed the response to any idea of Lutheran fundamentalism. Both are talking about a basic in marketing: optimize the obvious, low-hanging fruit as your base, then augment with the next closest, followed by the next closest after that. And after that? Maybe then explore more remote demographics. It’s a friggin no brainer.
LOWEST HANGING FRUIT: Lutherans of all synods/groups. There is a nation-wide network of Lutheran HSs and congregations (not just MO Synod - but that historical link cannot be ignored) that should be reinforced as a “feeder system.” I have, personally, received an email reply to a question of the admissions people that upfront told me, ‘Yes, We’ve gotten away from that approach, but new leadership will bring that to the fore.” Yeah, right. Has not happened.
NEXT LOWEST: People of middle-of-the-road Christian faith irrespective of denomination. Valpo never did nor will it ever scream Christian nationalist or born again evangelicals. This group too seems to have been lumped in with Lutherans in the recent past. But the fact that we have a ton of Catholic brethren and sisteren on campus could make a liar of me.
THEN: Pure academic pursuits irrespective of demographics. Engineering, Heath Science (I’m sorry, but Nursing is too narrow a description of what Valpo can offer), Business, and the foundation of any of these — Liberal Arts. That’s just for starters. Damn, did I forget, meteorology….
AFTER THAT: Specific target populations. Hispanic, foreign ….. etc. But these also should fit into the above overall target
STRATEGY: Apply this philosophy in concentric geographic rings of intensity around the campus beginning regionally and expanding from there with emphasis lessening (just a bit) as you go further from the center, but never losing sight of low hanging fruit.
Caveat: This is coming from an older Valpo grad who enjoyed a fantastic educational experience at VU during a period where there were 4,000+ on campus and that, in my memory, was result of what I described above.
I know we’ve beaten the drum on this board before, but if there are really only 413 freshmen, this president needs to GO. That’s unacceptable.
Once again. I never claimed that a Lutheran Fundamentalist mindset pervades valpo. Nor did I ever claim that Valpo was or has been a lutheran Fundamentalist university. So to claim that was my argument is deflecting the point.
However, that is the mindset that people on here are displaying. Whether knowingly or unknowingly. Valpo has, and still upholds, Lutheran/Christian Values. To claim that VU shouldnt appeal to all and should be closed off as a place of select few members would have resulted in the school closing sooner. and is directly contrary to both Lutheran and Christian values of acceptance and togetherness. Jesus communed with those who did not agree with him and those who held different beliefs than him. That much is indisputable.
The problems facing VU would still have happened regardless. However the damage control measures and corrective actions have proven to be unsuccessful or there have been a lack of these measures taken entirely
Whether knowingly or unknowingly. Valpo has, and still upholds, Lutheran/Christian Values. To claim that VU shouldnt appeal to all and should be closed off as a place of select few members would have resulted in the school closing sooner. and is directly contrary to both Lutheran and Christian values of acceptance and togetherness. Jesus communed with those who did not agree with him and those who held different beliefs than him. That much is indisputable.
The problems facing VU would still have happened regardless. However the damage control measures and corrective actions have proven to be unsuccessful or there have been a lack of these measures taken entirely
Sorry, but no. These vague insinuations about how the open- or closemindedness of the Lutheranism has affected the university's decline seem speculative. And this is the kind of hand-waving passive-speak that the administration itself has liked to use a lot... Things have happened. Measures have not worked. Stuff has proven to be unsuccessful.
As somebody who has attended a lot of VU administrator talks and townhalls, I'm afraid the truth of it all is a lot more straightforward: if you get enough stupid people running an organization, they will run it into the ground.
In brief, 1) The Board and VU Administrators let a lot of folk fail upwards into leadership for years, cultivating a culture of mediocrity and a fundamental fear of faculty and students among the administration. 2) As they began to face a shifting landscape of dynamics outside their control (rankings culture, internet dynamics of enrollment, demographic declines in the Midwest, falling numbers of Lutherans), they then turned to various business consultants hoping somebody with an MBA could tell them what to do, and became resentful of any faculty or students who dared to express concern. 3) As more and more of these corporate consultants were either hired as top administrators and/or strategic planning gurus, fewer and fewer of them had any understanding of what a school is or why students might want to come to a four-year residential private university. 4) With no regard for Valpo's historic strengths, they recycled the most trite stereotypes about ROI and jumped on all the same bandwagons as other mid/low tier schools, but often half a decade slow onto the bandwagon, which meant a lot of money spent on failed endeavors. 5) As the university began to sink, they panicked and began to cut programs and people with sort of half-baked assumptions about what was valuable or not valuable, and no understanding of how hits to the reputation might damage enrollment. 6) As Valpo's reputation and enrollment began to spiral and faculty and students started jumping ship, a lot of these 'higher ed professional' admins also began to jump ship, creating a turnover spiral and more opportunity for the Board to hire into top roles yet different stupid people who had even less institutional memory. 7) As the collapse of the historic core of the university began to undermine the attractability of the school as a whole, even some of the historically strong professional schools began to see serious problems in their retention of faculty and students and especially in their enrollments.
Only the above can explain how the Engineering School's total enrollment has fallen from 515 in yr 2015 to only 313 this yr 2025, a drop of -39.22%! And this is when the Engineering School is a genuinely excellent academic program, has benefitted from all the public push and rhetoric for STEM, generally passes most laymen's sense of what's a 'practical' major, etc... Sadly, it turns out that not even a strong professional school is immune to a central administration determined to kill enrollment.
So though the recruitment strategy may well involve some discussion of Lutherans and what sort of prospective-student Lutherans would see that institutional identity as a draw, the failure of the university actually has little to do with Lutheranism or religion at all, since stupidity is a religion-neutral causal factor.
@vuindiana - decent detailed analysis. The university being so slow in getting new effective leadership is painful. I guess it’s an academic thing, but I think objectively Valpo is in serious state of survival. Steinbrecher needs more than prayers to fix this but perhaps a more proactive strategy would benefit.
Also, why not pay off Padilla’s salary, who has to be only a cancer in the current state, delegate an interim and move on? Why should this even be debatable?
