What factors are affecting enrollment?

The South Dakota Board of Regents (SDBOR) recently released the enrollment rates of all South Dakota public universities revealing that the University of South Dakota has seen a drop in its student population.

USD has seen a 3.5% drop in enrollment over the past year, with a current student population of 10,040 according to the SDBOR. This drop however, is in line with drops seen at other universities across the state, with South Dakota State University (SDSU) seeing an enrollment drop of 2%.

This decrease however, has led many students and South Dakota residents to question whether or not these drops have been caused by the SDBOR’s 2025 decision to increase state tuition.

According to USD’s Vice President of Enrollment Scott Pohlson “The changes that I’ve seen in our numbers, in our data is less about the decision to increase tuition and more about just the general perception of the international market specifically.”

This past year, the SDBOR increased the tuition of its public universities, leading to a 2.4% increase in USD’s overall tuition.

“Our increases compared to our competitors aren’t as high or as significant, so we’re still priced at a spot where we felt comfortable as an institution,” said Pohlson. 

Pohlson went on to explain that while tuition increases are not always ideal, increasing tuition was what the SDBOR found to be the most logical decision at the time.

“We never want to increase costs, but we felt comfortable with what was determined to be the increase based on what we saw from what we call a price elasticity analysis that we do for our incoming students, both at undergraduate and graduate levels,” said Pohlson.

Pohlson also commented on the effects changes in tuition have on university enrollment overall.

“If you hold tuition level and your enrollments were to decline, or even your enrollments were to increase slightly, which has been kind of the norm across the country lately, it doesn’t have that impact for the institution overall, so probably the best place we’re at is small incremental increases in tuition rates, and also knowing at times we need to freeze those rates depending on how our enrollments and financials look,” said Pohlson.

The areas with the highest changes according to the SDBOR’s report were amongst international students as well as retention.

“Our retention rate is an area that we’re definitely working on, specifically from last year to this year. But even the previous year, one of those areas that we did have a higher retention or a lower retention rate, concern was in international students. And again, that factor wasn’t necessarily just price, although some of the students that did leave noted that they were looking for jobs, and it was a little harder to find jobs here than it was somewhere else,” said Pohlson.

Pohlson stated that changes within enrollment, especially following raises in tuition are the main reason why resources such as the USD emergency grant exist.

“That’s why we fundraise and continue to fundraise for our emergency fund to try and help students that identify themselves as in unique circumstances where they need some additional help, and so that’s that’s something else that we look at and use in our toolbox to help us with with price increases or just price stability,” said Pohlson.

For more information about changes to South Dakota enrollment rates, and tuition visit https://sdbor.edu/research-data/.