University enrollment has increased since spring 2010 but decreased by 1,567 full and part-time undergraduate students since last semester, according to the Office of Budget and Planning.
The Office of Budget and Planning makes an enrollment report of full and part-time students in each college on the 14th class day every semester.
Ernie Ballard, director of media relations, said in an e-mail that spring enrollment decreases from the fall because of December graduates and few incoming freshman.
“This past December, LSU graduated 1,603 students,” Ballard said.
Despite a decrease in enrollment since the fall semester, the University’s enrollment for spring 2011 increased by 695 undergraduate students from spring 2010.
The Office of Budget and Planning expected the increase in students to mirror the increase from the fall semester, said Robert Kuhn, associate vice chancellor of Budget and Planning.
“The spring is three percent above last spring just like the fall was three percent above the fall of 2009,” Kuhn said in an e-mail.
Kurt Keppler, vice chancellor of Student Life and Enrollment Services, said in an e-mail that the University’s freshman class in fall 2010 had about 700 more students than fall 2009.
The University currently has 27,027 undergraduate and graduate students and has increased by 766 students since spring 2010, according to the report.
The University’s number of graduate students has also increased since spring 2010 by 44 students, according to the report.
The largest undergraduate colleges are University Center for Freshman Year with 4,614,Humanities and Social Sciences with 3,952 and Engineering with 2,751 students, according to the report.
The largest graduate colleges are the College of Science with 678 students, Humanities and Social Sciences with 643 and E.J. Ourso College of Business with 600 students, according to the report.
Keppler said the University is reviewing strategies to increase the retention rate of these students with the newly created Retention Committee.
“The University is very committed to doing everything we can to increase retention rates,” Keppler said.
The committee was formed in January and comprises students, faculty and staff from all areas of the University, said Saundra McGuire, assistant vice chancellor for learning, teaching and retention in Student Life and chairman of the Retention Committee.
“The Retention Committee is a group of people that has been put together to improve retention until graduation,” McGuire said.
McGuire said only 62 percent of students who begin as full-time freshmen graduate from the University within six years.
“We are looking at why students aren’t graduating at a rate we would like them to be,” McGuire said.
 
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Contact Celeste Ansley at
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