Bradley's freshman enrollment and a look back on some predictions

Here's the info on what underlies the biggest story about Bradley University in the past 2 or 3 decades.  Frankly it is astounding that the local newspaper has not touched this story - although they have alluded to much of the fallout from this.

As most know, the sharp decline in freshmen enrollment has been a major issue at Bradley, but there is some good news....it appears to be turning around.
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24344

The BU Scout has an article detailing this. (and as noted, this story has not been given any fair or accurate coverage elsewhere)
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/low-enrollment-discussed-plan-in-action/

Freshman enrollment usually averaged around 1,050-1,075...this has been the case going back years....
http://www.eduers.com/University/Illinois/Bradley_University.html

Some years it was even slightly more...and enrollment was still pretty stable on the high end of that range at 1,080 in fall of 2013.
http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2014/08/02537_Bradley_065332.shtml

Even Dr. Glasser herself stated that and was aware by April of 2014 that enrollment was going to be down in fall of 2014.

Indeed - freshman enrollment took a huge hit in fall of 2014, dropping to 940 - way more of a drop than anticipated.
Then freshman enrollment dropped a little more this fall to 927, but that was less than anticipated and shows that the new moves by the people who REPLACED Dr. Glasser's administration are stemming the tide of decline.
Remember - Dr. Glasser was in place until May 31, 2015 so even this year's further slight drop in enrollment would have been due to her policies.

Administration, especially Dr. Glasser tried blaming national trends and the PJS bought that line and never even questioned it- but as one can easily see, that just is NOT the whole answer-
as many colleges are NOT seeing the same decline....most MVC schools are seeing enrollment increases.
https://www2.indstate.edu/news/news.php?newsid=4456
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=298168&#post298168

And of course the schools that now have our past personnel - UC-Davis & FGCU - are seeing enormous surges in enrollment!  Whoa!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=306338#post306338

Dr. Liberty, Bradley's current Interim President says the problem is ...
"The decreased enrollment can be attributed to Bradley’s inability to adjust old marketing strategies.."

..the university has been slow to use technology ..“Younger people are all mobile and into social media..“We got out of tune with that.”

“The marketplace is changing, and we haven’t adapted well to that,” Liberty said.
However, Liberty said the declining enrollment trend would stop after this year ...there will be a steady increase.”"
http://www.bradleyscout.com/news/low-enrollment-discussed-plan-in-action/

So Dr. Liberty seems to be disagreeing sharply with Dr. Glasser and he believes it was old, outdated policies that Bradley was using under Dr. Glasser's administration that were the whole problem.
There also is a ton of evidence that excessive and irresponsible over-spending under Dr. Glasser - especially in Athletics - drove the University to the brink of a financial ctastrophe, which then made the enrollment drop way more of an immediate issue.
Then the fact that everyone else on campus was blamed, and faulty was asked to cut back given smaller budgets and even asked to take pay cuts - really kinda rankled a lot since Dr. Glasser was getting excessively overpaid for the lousy job she was doing!
http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/report-bu-president-tops-salary-scale#stream/0
http://www.cinewsnow.com/news/local/Bradley-president-tops-college-executive-compensation-list-285648691.html

Remember this - when the morale was bottoming out in all the academic departments-
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-remarkable-letter-from-bradley.html

Nope, Dr. Glasser's reign was solely and uniquely responsible for all of the mess.  Not just the drop in enrollment but the simultaneous financial crisis she caused with reckless spending to try to help her boy Geno win.  Someone has to tell it like it is since the PJS sure isn't going to - they still have their noses up where the sun don't shine.



BTW - check out these predictions made back on January 2, 2015-
Hmmm...pretty close on all of them
http://bubravesblogger.blogspot.com/2015/01/predictions-2015.html