CSP Now Has the Second-Largest Enrollment within Minnesota’s Private Colleges

Concordia University, St. Paul (CSP), is pleased to share that we are now the second-largest private University within Minnesota with over 5,500 students for Fall 2020. CSP has fostered exceptional growth over the past decade, most notably over the past five years. Most other colleges and universities nationally are experiencing steady declining enrollment, reducing their abilities to invest in new programs and infrastructure. 

From 2015-2020, CSP’s total population of undergraduate and graduate students increased 27.1 percent, with record enrollment growth trends continuing in the 2021 spring semester. Concordia now has over 3,500+ undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students spanning our traditional and non-traditional programs.  

CSP has been pioneering new models of higher education tuition and programming for much of the past decade, which has positioned our university for success. Key factors include:

• A deliberate, intensive commitment to deliver academic programs that are relevant to career skills our students want, and employers seek.
• CSP’s groundbreaking 2013 “Tuition Reset” made it much more affordable for people to seek the higher education they want and deserve, keeping costs far below regional and national averages. 
• A highly disciplined fiscal management of the campus strategic plan, budget, and its resources.
• A focus on attracting and serving a wider range of students of all backgrounds reflects the communities we serve and brings powerful, life-changing opportunities for more students than ever. 

“Being relevant to the community, students, and prospective employers makes undergraduate and graduate degrees from Concordia University, St. Paul, extremely valuable,” said Kimberly Craig, Ed.D., vice president of enrollment management for CSP. “We continually invest in new programs that will provide a powerful private college experience with low out-of-pocket costs and lower student debt upon graduation. Affordability and workforce readiness are essential in today’s competitive higher education marketplace.”

What’s Next in CSP’s Growth Plan

CSP continues to expand relevant, real academic programming aligned with powerful career opportunities for our students. Expanded offerings that foster future career fields in health sciences, human services, business, law enforcement, education, and many others, will empower CSP students to succeed.

• A new partnership with Allina Health has allowed us to create a new associate’s degree program in echocardiography: This new program will help students become job-ready for rewarding careers in the medical field.
• New graduate programming aligned with trauma, resilience, and self-care will further empower students to expand their career options across multiple disciplines in our program catalog: CSP offers a deep roster of programs aligned with service-oriented professions, many of which confront societal challenges that are compounded by traumatic experiences of humans.
• Expanded clinical learning opportunities in our nursing program will also help students with the skills needed for their chosen field: Such programming also directly addresses real-world shortages that challenge the healthcare industry nation-wide.

These are just a few examples of the many foundational programs that propel CSP and our students through the university’s next phases. Innovative, multimodal delivery of academic programming provides students affordable pathways for success. CSP’s growth to date is a powerful indicator of what’s in store for our students, faculty, staff, along with prospective students making their decisions of where they’ll pursue higher education and graduate degrees.