This fall’s enrollment at Western Illinois University is down compared to a year ago. But the administration says there are some positive trends.
This fall’s enrollment is 4,447. That’s a decrease of 890 compared to last fall’s enrollment of 5,337.
Justin Schuch, WIU’s Vice President for Student Success, said enrollment matters, but it should not be the only measure of how a university is doing.
“If you look at things like our retention rate, if you look at different aspects for both freshmen and transfer rates going up, continuing to recruit a diverse class, these are all positive things that are pointing us in the direction that we want to go,” Schuch said.
He said WIU received more applications this year and accepted more students with high school grade point averages above 3.0.
The university reported enrollment for the Macomb campus is 4,017, while the Quad Cities campus has 430 students.
Between the two campuses, there are 640 freshmen, 463 sophomores, 808 juniors, 1,292 seniors, and 1,244 graduate students. All of those totals are lower than one year ago.
In the spring, WIU’s enrollment was 4,735, a decrease from the fall 2025 figure of 5,337, and a decrease of 1,025 from spring 2025, when enrollment was 5,760.
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