The sluggish economy did not hinder, but drew more students to NIU this semester, according to several NIU officials.

An early count shows fall enrollment is up 1.6 percent, from 24,509 to 24,895. The figure is expected to grow to about another 400 people after late starting classes are included in the final total, said Nick Noe, NIU’s institutional research director.

NIU President John La Tourette credited the jump in enrollment to increased graduate student demand and higher undergraduate student retention, as well as the economy.

“We came in over our enrollment target for undergraduates even though we’ve been forced to be more and more restrictive,” said La Tourette. “Part of the reason for the increase, we suspect, is the recession, but we know there’s also growing recognition of NIU’s reputation for quality programs.”

Bob Burk, NIU’s associate admissions director, said even though NIU attempted to trim the number of incoming students because of the budget crunch, NIU is “bucking the trend” with its new freshman applications.

“We were expecting a slight decrease, like 5 percent, because of what’s what is happening at other universities around the country,” he said. “But, we only had a 3 percent decrease and that’s representative that NIU is gaining popularity.”

Consequently, the 1992 spring and fall semesters will be extremely selective with incoming students and Burk said current NIU students should be pleased, since their competition is not increasing and the teacher/student ratio is staying the same.

“The resources and class availability are not there and we want to take care of our students who are already here,” he said.

Burk said NIU’s central location also helped enrollment figures rise.

“With the economy the way it is today, NIU has gained so much popularity because kids want to stay closer to home to save on transportation costs,” he said. “Also, we have more people coming back to college because they see how tough it is to make it out there and they want to better themselves.”

Also, the number of returning and transfer students kept up with the other increases. Nearly 90 percent of eligible students from the 1991 spring semester returned to NIU and there was a 1.6 percent increase in transfer students.

Noe said the stagnant job market is making students think about furthering their education.

“With the scarcity of jobs in the economy today, students are deciding to continue on with their education,” Noe said.

Noe pointed out the Graduate School increases were paced by an 11.4 percent rise in African_Americans, 13 percent jump in Hispanics and 38.2 percent leap in Asians. Adding College of Law increases to those figures, the increases for those same categories are respectively: 15.1, 16.1 and 34.4 percent, he said.