Enrollment

[petey23]

On 8/24/2026 at 9:58 PM, thUNDer said:

Big picture is there is much more to the college experience overall for most. A scam it is not but rather a choice, a passion, leaving home, a sense of belonging to a community, meeting your future, without minimizing the achievement to a ‘scam.’ Our measly BS degrees aren’t on either list but we’ll be forever grateful for our time & education at UND. I heard somewhere though that social work is on the rise but I digress 😏

Had a friend in college often say as a large group of people were hanging and interacting, discussing all kinds of topics in our fraterrnity house....."this is college, school is across the street."

[AJS]

12 minutes ago, gfhockey said:

So we are 15 % down?

Year to year freshman class, yes, unless that 2,210 number was taken out of context. Doubtful, but maybe was talking on-campus freshman only. We’ll see, could have sworn there was an article about how applications were up over previous year. 

[Walsh Hall]

23 hours ago, NDinCO said:

I hope there is room for both practical applications and humanities at universities. Practical applications like engineering, medicine, IT, etc. for obvious reasons, but since humans are naturally highly creative and curious, I think subjects like literature, art, music, philosophy, etc. have value. I enjoy reading Shakespeare. The guys a genius. I marvel at the works of Michelangelo. The founding fathers were heavily influenced by the philosophy of the Enlightenment thinkers; Rousseau, Locke, Montesquieu and others. So yes, the humanities don't provide many jobs or pay well, but I think they are part of our DNA, so some people will want to pursue that. 

I agree that those things are worthwhile endeavors, but whether they are worthwhile higher education pursuits which justify paying many tens of thousands of dollars is quite a different issue. 

[gfhockey]

1 hour ago, AJS said:

Year to year freshman class, yes, unless that 2,210 number was taken out of context. Doubtful, but maybe was talking on-campus freshman only. We’ll see, could have sworn there was an article about how applications were up over previous year. 

Darn how big was ndsu freshman class

[Walsh Hall]

On 8/25/2026 at 11:26 AM, Oxbow6 said:

Copy that Mr. Forbes

I'd be curious to see their methodology.  From my professional experience, several of those are going to be problematic.   At a minimum, there is already a major divergence where senior folks, with the use of AI, can do the work of numerous underlings.  The grunt work which was previously done by the new hires is becoming cheaply replaceable.  There are 5 or 6 of those that I would be very hesitant to encourage young folks to pursue, with accounting being at the top of the list.  I recently saw an AI accounting program demo which scanned and reviewed around 1000 pages of financials and prepared a small business tax return in about 3 minutes.  Of course, the information (at this point) would need to be reviewed, but the net time saving is immense. 

From my experience, any transactional or data driven service is in a major state of flux. 

[UND69er]

3 hours ago, petey23 said:

Had a friend in college often say as a large group of people were hanging and interacting, discussing all kinds of topics in our fraterrnity house....."this is college, school is across the street."

What's he doing today? Can he be considered to be a contributor to society or just along for the ride?

[JakeLove]

On 8/24/2026 at 3:09 PM, UNDDOM said:

Now list the bottom 20 degrees that are worthless... Music, Math, Psychology, Sociology, Arts, History, English, General Studies, Philosophy and Religion and so on.... hence the term 50%.  Yet kids will blow 50K for such degree and not sure why.  

Worthless if you want everyone to be educated to only be mindless functionaries. 
 

the technical professions value these fields of study for the depth they add to project decision making. 
 

devaluing the core liberal arts purpose of a university is foolish. 
 

[AJS]

On 8/24/2026 at 8:20 AM, The Sicatoka said:

I wonder if @Teeder11 has some insight.

Any update? Based on previous years, very odd first day numbers have not been released at either UND or NDSU. 

[SIOUXFAN97]

28 minutes ago, AJS said:

Any update? Based on previous years, very odd first day numbers have not been released at either UND or NDSU. 

ndac be waiting for und's number and then beating it by "1"

[AJS]

14 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

ndac be waiting for und's number and then beating it by "1"

To be fair, NDSU in recent years has always released first day numbers first. In a much easier to digest format than UND's release. MSU-Moorhead had theirs out last Monday. Weird deal - I have my theory's but guess we'll see. Might just have to wait until September. 

[SIOUXFAN97]

59 minutes ago, AJS said:

To be fair, NDSU in recent years has always released first day numbers first. In a much easier to digest format than UND's release. MSU-Moorhead had theirs out last Monday. Weird deal - I have my theory's but guess we'll see. Might just have to wait until September. 

theory? go!

[AJS]

57 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

theory? go!

Both schools have a key metric (guess is UND FR class size / NDSU total enrollment) that they won’t be able to spin. Won’t release anything until they have to. Since the numbers historically increase from first day to census day both are hoping those metrics will at very lease look a bit better than they do now. 

[SIOUXFAN97]

1 minute ago, AJS said:

Both schools have a key metric (guess is UND FR class size / NDSU total enrollment) that they won’t be able to spin. Won’t release anything until they have to. Since the numbers historically increase from first day to census day both are hoping those metrics will at very lease look a bit better than they do now. 

even if und's fresh numbers are down....is that a bad bad thing...or is it cyclical...up down up down...unlike ndac's enrollment is just down down down?

[AJS]

3 minutes ago, SIOUXFAN97 said:

even if und's fresh numbers are down....is that a bad bad thing...or is it cyclical...up down up down..

Depends on the % - if it’s down 15% (300 students) then that’s really bad. Which unless that previous article was misleading appears to be the case. If it’s just a few %, then correct, no big deal 

[forksandspoons]

I do recall reading that the aviation school was taking less freshmen on purpose this fall due to being overcapacity in past years.  

[jdub27]

15 minutes ago, forksandspoons said:

I do recall reading that the aviation school was taking less freshmen on purpose this fall due to being overcapacity in past years.  

This is accurate. Not enough airspace/time to accommodate everyone due to a larger than normal class last year, so it was capped at a lower number this year.

[gfhockey]

So how bad is it going to get

[UND69er]

3 hours ago, jdub27 said:

This is accurate. Not enough airspace/time to accommodate everyone due to a larger than normal class last year, so it was capped at a lower number this year.

I know personally of kids not applying and going elsewhere because the word on the street that getting flying time at UND is very limited and difficult.  

[Oxbow6]

17 minutes ago, UND69er said:

I know personally of kids not applying and going elsewhere because the word on the street that getting flying time at UND is very limited and difficult.  

Same. Yet I count 20+ UND planes at the Mesa Gateway Airport every time I fly in and out.

[UND1983]

31 minutes ago, Oxbow6 said:

Same. Yet I count 20+ UND planes at the Mesa Gateway Airport every time I fly in and out.

Little known fact: a separate entity, not affiliated with the UND collegiate aviation program at all

[SIOUXFAN97]

39 minutes ago, UND1983 said:

Little known fact: a separate entity, not affiliated with the UND collegiate aviation program at all

explain that a bit.....first thing i saw when i flew into there years ago...cool

[Oxbow6]

47 minutes ago, UND1983 said:

Little known fact: a separate entity, not affiliated with the UND collegiate aviation program at all

It is operated by the UND Aerospace Foundation. True that the Foundation and UND are separate entities but the Foundation does work in direct affiliation with UND.