Enrollment up for Fall Semester
Despite higher tuition, the 14-day-student-enrollment figure for Utah State University showed a 7-percent increase from last year, said John DeVilbiss, director of public relations and marketing. These record breaking numbers came as a surprise to some. With the 9 percent tuition increase, a decrease was possible, said Craig Petersen, chief of staff and special assistant to the president.
“I was worried, but apparently that was unfounded. Students care enough about USU to keep coming,” Peterson said.
It is large, but not large enough to cause a problem in dealing with the additional students, Petersen said.
“If it had been 20 percent, it would have [created] tremendous problems, but with this, I feel we can still provide good learning opportunities for students,” he said.
The exact number of enrolled students is now 22,656, DeVilbiss said. In the next 10 years, the university would like to see this continue to increase to about 28,000. This number counts only students with a certain number of credits and is what the legislature bases their funding on, he said. This number has gone up by 6 percent.
Having more students will create more impact, DeVilbiss said.
Given the demographics of Utah, these numbers are not likely to go down, said Joyce Kinkead, vice provost. The university typically grows about 3 to 4 percent per year.
The university was anticipating a drop due to the growth of BYU-Idaho. The figures this fall seem to say it’s not having as much of an impact – at least this year, Kinkead said.
With the climbing number of students, many classes have taken on additional numbers and sections have been added to courses, she said.
Emergency Instruction Money has been used to finance these additional sections, which is a fund the provost office used to alleviate the bottle neck in certain classes, Kinkead said.
Searches for new faculty continue – especially in engineering, computer science and education, she said.
“Given how long it takes to hire a faculty member, it’s not something to do at the last minute,” Kinkead said.
Because USU is a land-grant school, the nature of it doesn’t allow an exact estimation of numbers per year, Kinkead said. Students enroll across the state through distance education programs and locations extend into other countries. All these students – not just those on campus – are included in the count.
The second-year tuition money is being used to do this, she said. Although the number of students has gone up, the funding from the state is uncertain. Tuition only covers approximately 15 percent of the university’s expenses, Kinkead said.
“We’re very resource-thin, but we have to make sure we’re offering a quality education to students. A higher ratio leads to less quality. We want students to have excellent mentoring and advising in addition to classroom expectations,” she said.
Despite the lines and increased numbers, registration went better this year, said Heidi Beck, the associate registrar.
This was due to efforts from the computer services office, Beck said. Their system stayed up, the temporary “moments of sluggishness” were fewer and lines were shorter with more people using the automated system.
“Before, we’ve gotten overloaded, but the computer services office prepared for it. They deserve a lot of the credit,” Beck said. “Of course anytime numbers go up, we have to think about what to do and address issues.”
Since they know what problems might arise, they’ll continue to be pro-active, Beck said.