Even in a budget crisis, the University is attempting to grow.Preliminary projections estimate 520 more freshman will enroll in the University next fall as part of Chancellor Michael Martin’s intention to increase enrollment.Martin said the mid-5,000 range for incoming freshmen would be ideal, and he wants to grow the overall enrollment from 27,992 students to 32,000.The projections for freshman enrollment are based on last year’s applications and enrollments compared to this year’s admission levels at the same time, said Robert Kuhn, associate vice chancellor of Budget and Planning.Kuhn said spring orientation figures and other factors also play into the estimates.The University has admission criteria instead of selective admission, so whoever meets the criteria must be admitted. This creates some uncertainty with the actual number admitted versus how many actually enroll and come to school in the fall, Kuhn said. As of April 29, the University has admitted 12,715 prospective freshmen, compared 10,296 a year ago, Kuhn said. Though more than 10,000 students were admitted last year, only 4,779 actually enrolled in classes in the fall.”Predicting this is a complex procedure,” Kuhn said. “We won’t know exactly until summer.”There are ways the University can increase enrollment before having to add more faculty and resources, Kuhn said. The University must maximize its classroom capacity and resources to take more students and not increase costs, Kuhn said.Larger class sizes are part of the equation when accommodating the increase in freshmen, Kuhn said. “If you are in a class of 18 and there are two or three more students in there, do you know the difference?” Kuhn said. “If you are a freshman, do you know the difference if you have never been in a college class?”Another solution is having some freshman take freshman classes later in their college career, Kuhn said. “Again part of the solution to the budget problem is increasing these revenues,” Kuhn said. “And more students is more revenue.”The University stands to gain about $3,500 per student annually by increasing enrollment by these numbers.”An increase in freshmen is only one part,” Martin said. “One is graduate students. I believe its proportion ought to go up.”
Martin said he wants to increase the amount of transfers to build relationships with community colleges along with increasing the proportion of graduate students to undergraduates.—-Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]