JOPLIN, Mo. — Missouri Southern State University is touting gains seen in first-time enrollment numbers for a second consecutive year.

In their recently released figures, the university said new enrollment has increased 6.5% for the Fall 2023 semester. Last fall, this number grew by 1.7% from the previous year. This pertains to total freshmen, transfer, and graduate students new to campus, the release states.

Additionally, more first-time full-time freshmen are staying with the university: Retention rates indicate an 8% increase over the previous year for those who stayed enrolled for this fall semester since the last fall semester.

This fall, MSSU enrolled 378 new transfer students which is a 19% increase. Furthermore, the university saw a 63% increase in new graduate students enrolling in new master’s degree programs such as data analytics.

Approximately 90% of the university’s freshmen class comes from the Four States.

Top majors for incoming freshmen include nursing, criminal justice, business, psychology, computer information systems, and biomedical science.

As of Friday’s census day, MSSU recorded 4,107 students compared to last fall’s 4,155; a ~1% difference. Student credit hours increased 1% from 45,027 in Fall 2022 to 45,444 for Fall 2023.