This is the ninth year in a row OU's overall enrollment has increased as well, landing it on The Chronicle of Higher Education's fastest growing colleges list.
For the third year in a row Ohio University has a record-breaking freshman class size.
The class of 2019 was 4,423 Bobcats strong after the 15th day of classes, an increase of 1 percent from last year, Craig Cornell, senior vice provost for strategic enrollment management, said.
This is the ninth year in a row OU’s overall enrollment has increased, Cornell said.
Despite that long-term growth, Cornell said the university isn’t looking to grow substantially.
“Our goal has never been significant growth at any level,” Cornell said. “We’ve benefited from the fact that students are choosing us and they’re choosing us at very good rates, but that doesn’t mean we’re not prepared for it or unable to handle it.”
Cornell said once the university started seeing application numbers increase four years ago, university officials started having “even more nuanced conversations” about capacity levels for housing, parking and teaching. Last Fall Semester, according to a previous Post report, on-campus housing was above capacity at opening weekend, leaving dozens of students either living with resident assistants or in makeshift room accommodations.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="efaa5946-6312-11e5-b25e-931e014404c0"}}
“We’ve been able to handle ... those numbers, but it hasn’t been, you know, a desire to simply grow for growth’s sake,” Cornell said. “Where we’ve grown, is where we have the capacity and want to have more students.”
Though many demographics increased or stayed roughly the same from fall 2014, the number of freshman international students dropped for the third year in a row, according to numbers provided by Cornell. In 2012, there were 149 freshman international students. This fall there are 64 such students, down from 70 last fall.
The Athens campus' undergraduate enrollment is up 1.6 percent from last year, according to a university news release.
OU’s growth, specifically since 2003, has put OU on a national list. The Chronicle of Higher Education this fall ranked OU 18th in its fastest-growing U.S. colleges list.
From 2003 to 2013, OU enrollment in Athens and on e-learning modules for full and part-time undergraduate and graduate students grew from 20,452 students in the fall of 2003 to 28,786 in the fall of 2013 — nearly a 41 percent increase, according to a separate university news release.
{{tncms-asset app="editorial" id="0bdc64a0-6305-11e5-b4c4-57404fd4830a"}}
Terrick Vargason, a sophomore studying engineering, said it’s great that class sizes are getting bigger.
“It’s pretty cool to see ... (that) the university’s, like, growing and … that we accommodate more kids now,” he said.
But Hannah Veerkamp, a sophomore studying child and family services, said she has noticed over-crowding.
“I think that it's good that we’re letting in a lot of students because it’s making us a more well-known school, but at the same time I feel like before the university lets more students in, we need to find facilities to accommodate everybody,” Veerkamp said.
@MariaDeVito13
md781510@ohio.edu
