JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — (Note: The video above is from a previous related report.)
The newly named Edward Waters University is seeing record enrollment numbers for its fall 2021 semester.
Overall enrollment has increased by 14% as of the close of the fall registration period on Friday. The final enrollment count for the semester is 1,104 students, which includes the largest class of new students on record, the university announced in a news release Tuesday.
"This tremendous development for our university is further evidence of our continuing advancement and forward movement as a 'destination institution' of choice amongst parents and prospective students," EWU President and CEO Dr. A. Zachary Faison Jr. said in the release. “We’re equally ecstatic that this year’s enrollment outcome is also indicative of substantial progress being made towards enhancing the retention of our Tiger students as this latest overall enrollment effort indicates that we were successful in retaining nearly 80% of our students from spring 2021 to fall 2021."
Florida's first historically black college or university and first private institution of higher learning, EWU now has the highest overall enrollment it has seen in nearly 20 years. The total number of new students for the fall 2021 semester is 531, which is a 27% increase in total newly enrolled students over fall 2020 and a 50% increase over fall 2019, the release says.
Last week, the university named its football field after former Jacksonville Sheriff Nathaniel Glover, who served as president of then-Edward Waters College until 2017.
The university says that despite challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the university is experiencing a "comprehensive institutional renaissance" including its second consecutive year of increased total enrollment.