Misericordia and other schools across the region are struggling with the lowest enrollment numbers in decades.

President Myers and others from the university came to the conclusion that Misericordia’s old ways of recruiting are no longer going to be enough to get the enrollment numbers to where they need to be. These necessary changes have to be made so that the university can be successful.

This university has shown that it’s a great place for transfer students to come to after completing a few years of schooling at another university. Making these students crucial for boosting numbers. To appeal to these transfer students the idea is to offer them a scholarship that is hard to turn down.

“We are going to offer any new full-time transfer student an additional $5,000 scholarship for their first semester.  Students who are not technically transferring but just starting their first semester in January would also be eligible for the scholarship,” said Myers.

These new incentives aren’t limited to just transfer students. President Myers is also offering a 25 percent discount on tuition rates for the spring semester. This discount will apply to any part-time graduate student who enrolls in January.

President Myers and the enrollment staff want to do what they can to keep and value the current students here at Misericordia.

“For current students, our retention task force is using detailed analysis and predictive modeling with data collected from financial aid and many others across campus  to identify any students who may be at-risk for dropping out in the spring semester due to emerging and on-going financial challenges.  Those who our analytic models identify as having a “high risk” score due to finances will be invited to apply for COVID-related HERF (Federal relief) money to supplement the financial aid they are already receiving,” said Myers.

President Myers has a suggestion box open for all students and faculty to share their opinions and ideas, these suggestions can be inserted anonymously or you can put your name. This suggestion box can be located at  https://www.misericordia.edu/president-myers-suggestion-box. President Myers believes that we can all play a part in strengthening the enrollment numbers.

Myers feels that COVID has had a huge negative impact on students willingness to attend college this fall.

“Because of COVID quite a number of college students delayed coming to school in the fall—some thinking they’d take a semester off, others a whole year.  We want to encourage them to get started and give them a financial boost to help them do so.  We would love to welcome more students into the Misericordia experience and we hope this will help,” said Myers

President Myers is extremely pleased to be offering these incentives to students. He is fully aware of the struggles that are being faced when it comes to attending college and he wants to do everything he can to make it a great experience.

“Although these measures can’t possibly fix everything, they will help some students on their way to getting their degrees.  We are very happy to be able to offer them here at Misericordia and we hope to continue to be a leader and an innovator in student support and student success,” said Myers