Spring enrollment at MSU has fallen to its lowest number in at least five years.

The drop in enrollment will cost MSU roughly $500,000 in revenue, said Dr. Keith Lamb, vice president of student affairs and enrollment management.

This is the steepest drop in spring enrollment in at least five years, he said.

Final enrollment numbers will be reported on the 20th class day, or Feb. 8, so although the 5,723 number isn’t final, it’s pretty close, Lamb said said.

“That’s about what we expected, frankly,” Lamb said.

Administrators anticipated the enrollment shortfall for the spring when they saw numbers were down last fall. This means the “base” was down, Lamb said.The struggling economy and higher admission standards also contributed to the drop, he said.

“We need to take a hard look at what we do as far as keeping and retaining students.”Lamb said getting students to enroll at MSU isn’t as important as keeping the students we have here.

“I think we can do better at keeping students and helping them graduate,” he said. “We will take a look at that.”

Last semester Lamb’s job title changed to include overseeing enrollment.

He said he spent some of the Christmas break thinking of new ways to retain students.

“We’re going to undertake a strategic enrollment management process,” Lamb said. “We need to figure out what sizes our classes are going to be, we need to figure out how to shape our classes.”

He said administrators need to study services such as the Academic Support Center to get an idea of how to help and retain students.

“It’s not just social programs, it’s what kind of support programs do we offer to help students be successful in the classroom,” Lamb said. “You have to look at programs where the demand is. You have to look at programs where the jobs are. You have to build attractive programs. We have to strategically grow our institution.”

Lamb said many universities have undertaken this process of strategic enrollment management.

He plans to implement a “steering committee” to plan the project.

At least a month, he said, needs to be spent studying enrollment data.

“We have so much data out there we have to look at and make sense of to know where we’re at,” he said.

Lamb said “enrollment management” is kind of a misnomer.

“When most people hear the words ‘enrollment management,’ they think it’s just about recruiting students and bringing them here,” he said. “To me, that is half or less than half of the equation. If we can keep students here and give them the tools they need to be successful, we can better shape our enrollment. We can be more selective in our enrollment. We can be more purposeful.”

Lamb spoke about “stealth” applicants ¬– students who send out applications to numerous schools to increase their chances of being selected to one.

“Students are increasingly applying to numerous school, hedging their bets.”

Although 1,400 students applied to MSU in fall 2011, only about half of those accepted actually attended the university.