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Purdue meets goals of enrollment
plan
 By
Dave Stephens
Assistant Campus Editor
Purdue's West Lafayette campus is home to 38,208
students this fall, which is a 337 increase in students from last year.
Despite a slight increase in enrollment from last
year, Purdue is still meeting its goal of reducing undergraduate enrollment
and attracting better students, said Douglas Christiansen, assistant
vice president for enrollment services.
Christiansen said, to say that Purdue is trying
to reduce the number of undergraduate students on the campus seem confusing,
since undergraduate enrollment increased by 88 students and graduate
enrollment by 249. However, the size of this year’s freshmen class
is on track with Purdue's five-year enrollment management plan.
"There were certain things we're trying to get
accomplished," said Joe Bennett, vice president of university relations.
"One of them is to manage the enrollment numbers over the long haul
down to a level that will be in the mid 37,000 range."
Christiansen said overall enrollment might be up
slightly, "But that is because the freshmen classes from three and four
years ago were quite large. Once those students are out of the system,
enrollment figures will start to go down."
Christiansen also said the University has to be
careful to reduce the size of the freshmen classes slowly, so the enrollment
figures don’t fluctuate suddenly.
"We are very pleased with how we were able to meet
our goal with freshmen enrollment," said Christiansen. "As we continue
to meet that goal the integrity of Purdue will increase."
Christiansen said by limiting the number of new
students at Purdue, the University, as a whole, benefits.
"If we didn't limit enrollment than we couldn’t
handle all of the number of students who wanted to come to Purdue,"
said Christiansen. "Then the integrity of the different programs would
suffer as we run out of classroom space, teachers and facilities."
This year's freshmen class is the best ever, said
Christiansen, based on their class standings, test scores and the number
of preparatory classes taken before college.
The new freshmen class has 74 students who are
National Merit Scholars, an increase of 20 from the previous year, and
has average SAT score of 1134, an increase of 39 points from five years
ago.
Christiansen said that because of such a high caliber
freshmen class, the number of students retained should also increase.
"To me the fundamental key of retention is that
everybody in the university system is thinking about how to get the
student the educational tools that student needs to get their degree,"
said Christiansen.
The diversity of the West Lafayette campus also
increased with this year's enrollment. Purdue has accepted 11 percent
more African-Americans and 10.3 more Hispanic students, making the total
number of African-American, American Indian, Asian-American and Hispanic
students at the University 3,565.
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CAMPUS DESK PHONE:
(765)
743-1111 ext. 253
Campus editor:
Laura Pelner
Assistant campus
editors: Kurt Esposito,
Dave Stephens
To
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