Minnesota State System Enrollment Down – Including Rochester

St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - Enrollment in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System continues to decline.

The higher education system is reporting that a total of just over 135,000 students were enrolled in the seven state universities and 32 community and technical colleges at the start of the new school year in September. That’s down about 2.8-percent from the previous fall and is almost 14.5-percent below the system's peak enrollment of nearly 158,000 students in 2011.

Minnesota State is projecting another 2.8-percent decline in enrollment next fall before it’s predicted to stabilize in 2018 and 2019.

The student headcount at Rochester Community and Technical College declined about four-percent this fall. Total enrollment was just under 3950 in September, which is about 185 below the enrollment total from the fall of 2015.

RCTC's enrollment peaked was in 2010 at over 4700 students and is currently projected to rise slightly next year and then remain stable through 2019.

Riverland Community College saw its enrollment drop below 2000 for the first time in at least a decade. The student headcount this fall was 1998, which is down about 80 from last year.

Enrollment at Winona State University fell below 8000 for the first time since 2009. As of September, there were 7890 students enrolled at Winona State, which is down about 3-percent from last fall.

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