YSU administrators prioritizing on-time graduation and student retention this academic year

Students and faculty are getting ready for a fresh start to another school year and administrators are setting on-time graduation rates and student retention as their top priority.

Dr. Jennifer Pintar, YSU’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Youngstown State University addressed more than a hundred facility members on Tuesday. She explained even though enrollment is up they're seeing less high schoolers opt for a college degree and have hundreds of students who did not return.

“We’re responding to that by offering certificates, we’re offering credentials, micro credentials, we’re offering workforce education invitation opportunities," Dr. Pintar said. 

With the new semester comes some changes as well. The university will no longer accept students for Bachelors of Arts degrees in physics, biology and chemistry. Students in the program will be able to finish out. Those that are new will have to enter into a Bachelors of Science.

As the university struggles to attract high schoolers like many higher education institutions across the nation, more than three dozen courses are seeing low enrollment numbers. They are above the state minimum requirement and won’t be cut but are now under a microscope. 

“We’ll work with those programs individually with the facility members and the chairs and make sure that we're providing as much resources as they need and to see where maybe the students are trailing off or why the students aren't graduating,” Dr. Pintar said.