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NEW ORLEANS — Eric Bass was in his first week at Tulane in fall 2005.Then Hurricane Katrina changed everything.Bass headed to Boston University to finish his first semester as a college student.But it wasn’t home, and Bass returned to Tulane.”The school is fine, but other areas outside of Tulane and Uptown had a lot of damage and a lot of stuff was destroyed,” Bass said.Bass is not part of the trend many colleges and universities in New Orleans are seeing as enrollment numbers continue to decrease.The University of New Orleans, Loyola and Tulane and Xavier universities saw their highest enrollment numbers a year before Aug. 29, 2005.Enrollment at UNO, Loyola and Tulane are continuing to decrease, while Xavier’s numbers are at a standstill.TULANE UNIVERSITYTulane, a private university, saw a 21 percent decrease in enrollment numbers in fall 2007 compared to fall 2004.Earl Retif, vice president for enrollment management, said Tulane wants to be a small school.He said Tulane President Scott Cowen has a goal to have fewer students and to not be “too big of an institution.”After Tulane closed its doors because of Katrina in fall 2005 because of Katrina, more than 6,000 students went to 600 different schools across the country, with 93 percent returning in the spring, Cowen said.Despite the decreased enrollment and the continuing recovery, Tulane students are still excited to start the school year.Linda Davies, linguistics freshman at Tulane, said that structurally the university is in great shape.A native of Nashville, Tenn., Davies said she wanted to stay in the South but go to school in a major city.”It’s an awesome city,” Davies said. “The French Quarter definitely got its life back and parts of the city just look fine.”Bass, Tulane finance senior, said after returning to Tulane in spring 2006 semester, the educational quality of the school was already back to normal.Helping the city recover was one reason Bass said he wanted to come back.”A lot of people immediately helped after the fact, but then people kind of just forgot about it,” Bass said. “Not only did we not get the funding that we needed, we just didn’t get the manpower. It really is a great city with a unique culture, and it should be preserved.”UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANSUNO, the only public university in New Orleans, had the most drastic decrease in its enrollment — 35 percent less students were enrolled in fall 2007 compared to fall 2004.A total of 17,350 students enrolled at UNO during the fall 2004. Before Katrina devastated the city, 17,142 people were enrolled. When UNO re-opened up for the spring 2006 semester, less than half — 6,684 — students returned.While 11,747 students attended UNO during the 2006-2007 academic year, 400 fewer students were enrolled for the fall 2007.LOYOLA UNIVERSITYLoyola, a private Jesuit university, was affected similarly to Tulane, seeing a 20 percent enrollment decrease in fall 2007 compared to fall 2004.About 5,400 students were enrolled in fall 2004, while about 4,300 students attended Loyola in fall 2007.Loyola’s enrollment for fall 2005 was unavailable, according to a Loyola Public Affairs official.Robin Abbot, Loyola political science senior, said Loyola was his first choice when deciding about college and wanted to give it a chance.Abbot, an Abeline, Texas native, said he had just finished his freshman orientation when students evacuated New Orleans before Katrina.Abbot attended Hardin Simmons University in his hometown for the fall but decided to return to Loyola despite temptations to stay away.”When I first got back, a lot of things were closed down,” Abbot said. “I remember I got sick one week, and I had to get a prescription filled in the back of a trailer.”He said after his first “real” semester at Loyola, New Orleans began to return to normal.B.B. Bridges, Loyola biology freshman, said if the university hadn’t offered her a scholarship, she would have been weary about coming to New Orleans because Katrina affected so many aspects of the city.”As a whole, once they get a feel for the education and the people, they’ll realize that Hurricane Katrina doesn’t really affect the school,” said Bridges, an Atlanta native.XAVIER UNIVERSITYXavier, a historically black university in Uptown New Orleans, had 4,121 students enrolled during fall 2004, but dropped that number to 3,088 students in fall 2007.Winston Brown, Xavier’s dean of admissions, said he’s projecting to have 3,200 students enrolled this semester.”Within five years, we will be back to our normal enrollment,” Brown said. “We’re pretty much on schedule for that.”Xavier was closed for fall 2005 following the aftermath of Katrina but re-opened for spring 2006.More than 4,200 students were enrolled before Katrina and 3,091 students — 74 percent of enrollment — returned for the spring semester.”We’re basing our enrollment on new students that we recruit from year to year even though we did have a significant number of students who left after the storm and transferred back after we settled in,” Brown said.He said the academic programs at Xavier are “as strong as ever.””Our facilities [and] our campus is back 100 percent,” Brown said.Emily Holden contributed to this report.