Oldham Addresses Enrollment Decreases at TTU

Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham addressed some of the challenges the university faces regarding shifting enrollment numbers.

According to Oldham, TTU saw a slight decrease in undergraduate student enrollment this fall, falling to 10,187.

“That’s a little bit of a drop overall from last year, and it’s been expressed as to some of the reasons why that is,” Oldham said, “but primarily due to the large graduating class and the drop in both international students and transfer students that we’ve observed.”

Oldham added the first-year retention rate also decreased from 79 percent last year to 75 percent this year, a stat he said is something both he and the university as a whole looks to improve every year.

“First-year retention rate is a metric we often look at in terms of student success,” Oldham said. “For an institution like Tennessee Tech, my benchmark has always been around 80 percent as a pretty good benchmark for first-year retention rate. When I arrived in 2012, we had a 69 percent first-year retention rate. We worked real hard over those first few years to bring that up.”

Despite some decreases, Oldham said other areas such as six-year graduation rates increased from 50 to 55 percent.

“Keep in mind those are students who start here as freshmen and complete a Bachelor’s Degree within that six years,” Oldham said. “Nationally they do that because it’s one and a half times what you would consider the minimum or typical time to complete a Bachelor’s Degree. Historically we’ve been hovering right around or below 50 percent, so a five percentage point in graduation rate is actually pretty substantial.”

Oldham said the number of graduate students at TTU increased this year as well, jumping to roughly 1,200 students for an increase of 3.6 percent. He added he expects graduate numbers to increase over the next few years.