Iowa State enrollment for the 2020 fall semester is down 1,566 students from last year, with a surprisingly high one-year retention rate of 88.5% of first-year students returning for a second year amid the pandemic, the Iowa State Daily reported. Laura Doering, vice president for enrollment management, said the university put forth extensive efforts to prevent the disenfranchisement of students due to the pandemic. Fall 2020 enrollment was down 4.7% compared with 2019; the 2019 fall semester had a return number of 33,391 students, as compared with this year’s return number of 31,825.