Students walk to and from class Thursday on the Kansas University campus. This is the second consecutive year that KU’s enrollment has fallen. It now stands at 29,462 students, according to figures released Thursday.

Kansas University’s fall enrollment is down this year to 29,462 students, according to figures released Thursday.

KU dropped 542 students overall compared with last fall, which represents a 1.8 percent decrease. Enrollment at KU Medical Center was essentially stable, rising slightly by 0.6 percent.

This is the second consecutive year KU’s enrollment has fallen, after a slight 0.3 percent drop last year, following KU’s record fall 2008 enrollment of 30,102.

The dip wasn’t unexpected following the record levels, said KU Provost Jeffrey Vitter.

ACT scores for incoming freshmen class were at their highest ever — with an average of 24.9. Nine KU students earned perfect test scores on the ACT or SAT.

That’s no accident, Vitter said.

“We’re consciously trying to build the quality of our institution,” he said.

Vitter said he was glad to see that KU’s international enrollment increased by 9.4 percent to its highest mark since 1993. And for the first time, the majority of those students were undergraduate students.

KU’s figures were in line with most of the state’s regents universities, which either stayed relatively steady or fell in enrollment — Fort Hays State University was the exception, posting a 5.1 percent increase.

Kansas State University’s enrollment essentially remained the same, as the school gained just seven students, taking the school to a count of 23,588.

Among the six regents schools, only Pittsburg State University, with a 2 percent decrease, saw a sharper drop-off than KU.