Colleges Expecting 18 Million Students
Posted by admin on September 17th, 2008
More students than ever were expected to head to the nation’s colleges this fall — 18 million in all.
Early reports suggest that Michigan will reflect the same record-breaking enrollment overall.
And as schools began releasing preliminary enrollment numbers last week, nearly all reported both their freshman class and overall head count.
At Michigan Technological University, enrollment shot up by 4% to 7,014 students this year, boosted in part by a marketing campaign that celebrates MTU’s chilly, remote campus, which includes its own ski slope, said John Lehman, assistant vice president of enrollment services.
Rather than being almost apologetic for its location, the new message is, “We’re a 10-hour drive from Detroit, yes. But we’re a ton of fun,” he said.
That meant MTU hit its 2010 enrollment goal two years early, so much so that MTU rented space from a local Best Western last year to house several dozen students.
The enrollment increase is boosted, too, by a temporary population bulge made up of the children of baby boomers.
Once these larger classes graduate, class sizes are expected to return to typical levels. That means Lehman’s job — which for the past few years has been to grow the school’s student body — is to keep the numbers stable.
“We’re where we want to be,” he said.
Elsewhere, Michigan’s three largest universities — Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University — have not yet released enrollment numbers. But most of the state’s smaller schools are reporting significant increases.
Among the fastest-growing are U-M’s Flint campus, Ferris State University and Central Michigan University.
Still, all this record-breaking comes against the backdrop of another set of records — tuition boosts that exceed the inflation rate, the rising cost of room and board and hefty student loans.
But what’s a student to do? asked Brie White, a freshman at Oakland University, where enrollment is up by at least 23% since 1999.
White said she’ll have to take out college loans to make up the difference between the cost of school and her scholarships. And she’ll live at home to shave expenses.
