The University slightly escalated in its overall enrollment numbers for the fall 2011 semester, according to data released yesterday by the Office of Budget and Planning.
A spike of 214 students increased the University’s total enrollment to 28,985, up from last fall’s count of 28,771.
Despite the overall increase, the University sank in its incoming freshman enrollment by 191 students, leaving the count at 5,290. The incoming class of 2010 was 5,481.
Chancellor Michael Martin said Monday he hopes to lead the University to a 32,000 or 33,000-student mark in the upcoming years.
Kurt Keppler, vice chancellor for Student Life and Enrollment Services, previously said he was expecting a total enrollment increase this fall with a decline in the number of incoming freshmen because last fall’s freshmen class was exceedingly large.
T. Gilmour Reeve, vice provost for academic planning and review, said though the freshmen class downsized, it is still larger than enrollment models projected. The model, which was developed a few years ago, based enrollment predictions on a class size of 5,000.
“The positive way to look at it is we’re still bringing in over 5,000,” Reeve said.
Graduate student enrollment also decreased by 106 students, totaling 4,604.
On the undergraduate level, The University College Center for Freshman Year encompasses the University’s largest enrollment at 6,544, while the School of Coast and Environment has the smallest enrollment count with 45.
The School of Social Work, the School of Library and Information Science and the College of Education, which will soon be merged with three other programs to create a new college, had enrollment counts on the graduate level of 247, 167 and 450, respectively.
One of the ways the University planned to fill this year’s budget gap was through tuition and fees from projected increased enrollment, according to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Jack Hamilton.
Reeve said the hiked tuition money from larger enrollment “helps a significant problem, but doesn’t solve the