Although this summer’s NIU enrollment figures remained virtually the same as last year, there has been a noticeable shift to off-campus student enrollment.

This ends a three-year pattern of increasing on-campus enrollment, said Nick Noe, NIU’s director of institutional research.

Bill Wren, an off-campus student, said “Summer is the only time that I can make some real money.”

Wren is a full-time student who works during the regular school year. He said he is not able to work much during the school year because of his class load.

Wren said he believes he is representative of a trend in which students go to summer session in order to “lighten the load” throughout the rest of the year.

He also said he believes the increase in summer school attendance is an economic choice for many. Wren said, “that way they can get out of here in four years.” Wren was enrolled for three hours this summer, while working 30 hours per week at his job.

Compared to last year’s undergraduate enrollment figures, summer on-campus enrollment fell by 268 students, a drop of about 3.5 percent. This was offset by an 11.3 percent increase in off-campus enrollment. Off-campus enrollment for this summer was 2,776, compared to 2,494 a year ago.

Noe said the shift to off-campus enrollment was greater for graduate students. There were 299 more off-campus grad students enrolled at NIU this summer, a 13 percent increase, compared to last summer, bringing total enrollment to 2,605. Total on- and off-campus enrollment for graduate students remained in the range of 6,000 students for the fourth consecutive year, Noe said.

A breakdown of on-campus total enrollment shows that there were 4,074 full-time summer students. There were also 5,714 part-time students.

Figures for off-campus enrollment show 544 students attending full-time, while there were 2,232 students attending part-time.

On-campus graduate enrollment for this summer’s session dropped by 155 to 3,484, after increasing for four consecutive years.

Overall summer enrollment totals for the past five years have been: 9,503 in 1985; 10,458 in 1986; 10,705 in 1987; 10,318 in 1988; and 10,332 in 1989.