In August 2018, we welcomed the most academically prepared freshmen class in the history of WKU with an average GPA of 3.39. At 3.42 this fall, we raised the bar yet again. This important achievement stems from our work as a university to thoughtfully and strategically shape our student body. As you have heard me say on multiple occasions, our focus must be recruiting future graduates – those with the preparation, drive and work ethic to set them on a path toward success. And because we know high school GPA remains the strongest indicator of college success for beginning freshmen, we celebrate this upward academic momentum as it clearly supports our mission as an institution.
Your terrific work inside and outside the classroom is also producing very strong results in retention rates for our students. In only two years, our first-time, full-time student retention increased 3% to 72.9% - further moving WKU toward the aggressive goal of 80% by 2028. We celebrate even more impressive retention gains for our low-income students - up 4.5% from two years ago.
While the total headcount for fall 2019 is down 6.6% from last year (19,461 to 18,183), our revenue is tracking with our projections, and we anticipate no further changes to the budget.
