NIU is seeing high numbers of students applying and has capped enrollment at 25,000. It also is taking steps to cut the costs of the applicant boom, including a change to online class schedule books for spring 2005.

About 3,100 freshmen and 2,000 transfers will enroll for fall 2004, said Donald Larson, NIU executive director of enrollment services.

The cap lowered enrollment figures from last fall’s 3,239 freshmen and 2,153 transfers, Larson said.

In one attempt to control the booming student population, NIU had to cap admissions for fall, said David Dunlap, director of marketing and public relations for NIU Housing and Dining Services.

About 2,300 freshmen and 1,150 transfers have registered so far, Larson said. Summer orientation is ongoing, so these figures are increasing daily, he said.

“We are anticipating an undergraduate enrollment of 18,200 to 18,400 students for fall,” Larson said. “We are also planning to keep overall enrollment close to 25,000.”

Last year NIU saw more students than it has since 1981 with total enrollment of 25,260, according to NIU Institutional Research data.

In fall 2003, 16,128 students applied to NIU, 10,028 were accepted and only 3,239 actually enrolled. The same semester, 6,348 new transfers applied, 4,107 were accepted and 2,233 of those students enrolled, according to NIU Institutional Research.

For next fiscal year, Dunlap said, NIU Housing and Dining Services and Admissions have worked together to manage all the budgetary issues.

Housing and Dinning Services developed a housing priority plan, Dunlap said, to accommodate all students who applied.

Registration and Records has accelerated a plan to eliminate the costs of printing and mailing a paper schedule of classes in favor of an all-online solution, Larson said.

Beginning in spring 2005, NIU will use a paperless system to replace the paper schedule.

Other colleges and universities have done this already, Larson said. Southern Illinois University has not printed schedule books for two years.

Among Mid-American Conference schools, the University of Buffalo and the University of Toledo are online. Most schools that are not have made plans to do so, Larson said.

In addition to the new class search engine that NIU has on the Web, Larson said, NIU will make available a printable version of the schedule of classes that will be updated on a regular basis.