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Changes to teachers' ed impact LU's application numbers

Overall undergraduate applications are down two per cent this year in open enrolment programs (still up 24 per cent from 2012) and down 13 per cent in the university's 23 limited enrolment programs (down two per cent from 2012).
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A Laurentian official said provincial changes to teachers' colleges have impacted the university's application numbers. Supplied photo.

 Overall undergraduate applications are down two per cent this year in open enrolment programs (still up 24 per cent from 2012) and down 13 per cent in the university's 23 limited enrolment programs (down two per cent from 2012).

Graduate applications are also down eight per cent this year, but remain 32 per cent higher than three years ago.

Applications for Laurentian's French consecutive bachelor of education program are down 51 per cent, which is 42 per cent lower than three years ago.

Chris Mercer, Laurentian's director of student life and enrolment management, said the decrease related to teachers' college was expected.

The province has increased teacher training to two years instead of one, and halved the students admitted to teachers' college in an attempt to deal with a glut of teachers in Ontario.

“Over half of the decrease we're seeing this year is related to teachers' college,” Mercer said, speaking to NorthernLife.ca after a Laurentian University board of governors meeting earlier this month. “It's that impactful.”

He said there's also a new engineering school that recently opened in Toronto, and that's affected the applications to Laurentian's engineering program.

There is one area of good news: undergraduate applications from non-Ontario high school students are up nine per cent, to a record high of 1,304 applicants, which is up 18 per cent compared with three years ago.

In 2013, Laurentian had the highest increase in overall application numbers of any Ontario university, at 20 per cent.


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