Another year, another record-breaking freshman class size.

LSU has again upped the number of freshman enrolled this year. With that upping, aggregating freshman students of higher academic achievement and more diverse backgrounds.

But our campus under shaded oaks is reaching its capacity. Commuters are pushed to the limit in finding places to park. Some residents are being housed off campus. Restaurants on campus host lines that snake around what seems endlessly.

The influx of bodies is bringing down the experience for everyone.

“You won’t probably hear me next year say, ‘We broke an enrollment record,’ unless it’s by like 10 or 15,” LSU President William F. Tate IV said at a Board of Supervisors meeting in September 2023. “… We’re not trying to grow it anymore.”

Yet the enrollment – and acceptance – continues to tick up. This fall saw the acceptance of over 400 more students than last year.

The Reveille reported this year’s new freshman class has reached 7,912 students. This increase continues to push infrastructure and faculty to the limit. This year, the university offered $3,000 to freshmen willing to live at home instead of bunking on campus. The number enrolled in 2023 was 7,494, according to university data.

More students should mean more tuition funds going toward the university, which should be a good thing. More students should mean an opportunity for new friends. More enrolled students means more young adults have the opportunity to pursue a better life for themselves, at least in theory.

Yet the reality we’re in seems to at least partially exist in contradiction to this. Students are “crunched” to fit in a university which has clearly reached capacity.