NIU enrollment has remained constant during the past two years, after falling from 1987-88 figures.

NIU Institutional Research Director Nicholas Noe said enrollment figures for NIU this year show very little increase in student population from last year’s numbers.

“Basically, enrollment for fall was the same as the previous fall,” Noe said.

Anne Kaplan, executive assistant to NIU President John La Tourette, said the current enrollment level corresponds to the availablity of resources NIU has to offer. Kaplan said undergraduate enrollment should be about 18,000 in order for NIU to meet every student’s needs.

“We don’t get a bigger chunk of the state educational budget if our enrollment increases, so it would be very hard to take any more students,” she said.

Robert Burk, NIU Office of Admissions associate director, said many admission restrictions are the result of limited financial resources.

Burk said the admission standards for incoming freshmen this year were the same as last year.

“We feel that the resources available should enable all students to get full schedules and graduate on time,” he said.

Noe said NIU admits about 3,300 new freshmen and 2,100 transfer students every fall.

The number of students admitted is determined by the number of students who graduated the previous semester versus the number of applicants and the available resources, Noe said.

“During the ‘80s, it’s been a period of excessive demand. The number of applicants has far exceeded the number of people we can admit,” Noe said.

Burk said the number of freshman admitted increased slightly from 3,137 in 1988 to 3,170 in 1989.

The minor increase was the result of a large graduating class in 1988, providing space for more incoming students, he said.

“We’ve finally gotten some more funding to come through this year so we might be able to admit 3,200 students next fall,” Burk said.

Most students can graduate in four or four and a half years because of the admissions policies NIU uses, Burk said.

Most people who take longer than four years do so because of financial or personal reasons, Burk said.

“A lot of people are taking 12 hours because they’re concerned about getting good grades or a better education,” he said

Kaplan said enrollment levels must be monitored carefully because NIU could lose state money if enrollment is too low.