Student enrollment saw a decrease for the third year in a row.

The ten-day count for student enrollment is down by 4.9 percent from last year, with 21,869 students enrolled for the fall 2012 semester. Student enrollment in fall 2011 was 22,990 and 23,850 in fall 2010, according to the 2011-2012 NIU data book.

At Wednesday’s University Council meeting, NIU President John Peters said the decrease in enrollment was not unexpected. There are several factors contributing to the decrease: Peters said the university had a large graduating class last spring semester. The class was part of a large freshman class from 2008. Over 5,700 degrees were awarded last year and nearly 4,000 of them were bachelor degrees.

Increasingly smaller freshman classes each year was another factor. The 2012 enrollment for new freshmen managed to increase by 2.9 percent, Peters said.

Peters said what was not quite expected was the decrease in new transfer student admissions. The number of transfer students was down by 10 percent from last year.

One factor for the decrease in enrollment was a change in demographics that left a smaller pool of high school seniors to recruit from, said Kelly Wesener Michael, acting vice president of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. People are also attending community college more and leaving NIU with less students, she said.

Peters said the decrease in enrollment caused him no great concern and he remains optimistic.

“We had planned in our budgeting for fluctuations,” Peters said.

Wesener Michael said the decrease does not affect NIU’s Vision 2020 goal to have 30,000 students enrolled by the year 2020.

“We’re still working toward that goal,” she said. “We’re always striving to have a strong recruitment process.”

The university must also has to work on retention, Peters said.

Plans are in motion to resolve the issue of retention at NIU, said Paul Palian, director of media and public relation.

“First we have to find out if people are leaving before graduation and why,” Palian said. “We also plan to implement programs to help students reach the goal of graduation.”

The “clarion call” for this year was continuing to focus on freshman enrollment, Peters said. The university has a great product to sell like new faculty, great facilities, a new residence hall, the residential renaissance and engaged learning, he said.

Peters said it was good news the number of new freshmen at NIU increased because the university worked hard on recruiting them. The quality of freshmen has increased as well. The percentage of students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class increased from about 8 percent to about 11 percent, Peters said.