For the next 10 years, NIU aims to improve scholarships, campus facilities and create new academic programs to attract more and higher quality students as part of NIU President John Peters’ Vision 2020 Initiative.

NIU has some trouble attracting high quality students, said Brian Hemphill, vice president for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Over 3,000 students who scored a 28 on their ACT applied to NIU last year, and only 115 actually attended, Hemphill said.

“A part of being able to attract high quality students is that you have to make sure you have an overall university experience that is appealing to that student,” Hemphill said. “You must have opportunities for them to engage with faculty around research and to be able to study key areas that are important for them and their future.”

A primary goal of Vision 2020 is increasing total student enrollment to 30,000 and increasing the percentage of incoming students who graduated in the top 10 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent of their class, Hemphill said.

“Historically, we’ve been right around 10 percent of our incoming class would be in the top 10 percent of their high school class,” Hemphill said. “We want to increase that number to 20 percent by the time we get to 2020.”

This year, NIU’s enrollment sits at 22,990, the lowest it’s been since 1999. This number also misses NIU’s target fall 2011 enrollment of 23,768.

A $10 million commitment to scholarships is one of the ways NIU hopes to reach its 2020 target. The scholarships will be merit-based and competitive with scholarships other universities offer, Hemphill said.

“Nearly 1,700 new students enrolled this fall with an NIU merit-based scholarship,” said Peters in his Sept. 1 State of the University address. “We can say with certainty that for many of these students, the scholarship was the deciding factor in choosing NIU.”

Improving residence halls and facilities is another goal of recruiting students by projecting an ideal university experience, Hemphill said.

“When you look at our residential facilities, we were really dated in terms of our overall facilities,” Hemphill said. “That is why the residential renaissance that the president announced from last year has been so significant.”

Grant Hall and Gilbert Hall are due for renovations, Hemphill said, and a comprehensive outdoor recreation complex is also going to be significant for the student body.

Freshman undecided major Jocelyn Ackles said NIU doesn’t seem like a hard school to get into, but it may be hard for people coming from high school.

“Maybe they can’t adapt well to college since it’s slightly harder than high school,” Ackles said. “High schools, in some areas, are less difficult than other ones.”

She said she wasn’t attracted to the university through its advertising.

“It was more location than advertisement,” Ackles said. “I live … in Sycamore and I wanted to go to a university instead of a community college.”

History education major Brandon Phillips said NIU proved to be a good school for him.

“It’s everything I could have hoped for,” Phillips said.

However, Phillips said the economy seems to be making college access difficult.

“The economy sucks, and it seems student loans and scholarships can’t cover the costs,” Phillips said.