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Enrollment Up Nearly 2 Percent San Marcos, Calif., University

Posted on: Thursday, 29 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

By David Garrick, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

Sep. 29--SAN MARCOS -- Enrollment at Cal State San Marcos has increased by nearly 2 percent this fall, but the university fell short of the enrollment growth target set for the campus by California State University trustees.

Data from Monday's fall enrollment census, which was released Wednesday afternoon, found that the number of students at the university has increased this fall to 7,502, a jump of 137 from the 7,365 students who were enrolled at fall census in September 2004. That amounts to a 1.9 percent increase.

Because some students do not take a full 15-unit courseload, the number of full-time equivalent students at the university this fall works out to 5,969, a 2.3 percent increase from the 5,835 full-time equivalent students last fall.

The CSU trustees had set a goal of 6,027 full-time students for the San Marcos campus this fall, which would have been an increase of 192 full-time students. The number of full-time students increased this fall by 134, which was 58 full-time students short of the state target.

University President Karen Haynes said that school officials still expect to meet the state enrollment target for the academic year.

"We anticipate meeting it because we've been aggressive about spring enrollment, and because we are not that far below it right now," said Haynes. "So I am optimistic."

Haynes said that another reason for optimism is the fact that a large percentage of the additional students this semester are freshmen.

This year's 817-student freshman class is 91 students larger than the 726 students in the freshman class of 2004. The freshman surge accounts for 66 percent of the 137-student increase this fall.

"It is a goal to have more students here as freshmen," said Haynes. "We want to get them here as early as possible."

In previous years, enrollment growth at CSUSM has been fueled more by transfer students than freshmen, according to university data.

The 7,502 students this fall is not the highest enrollment in the history of the 16-year-old university. Enrollment surpassed this total in both 2002, when it was 7,627, and 2003, when it was a record 7,708.

Enrollment dropped sharply in fall 2004 to 7,365 students because CSU trustees ordered systemwide admissions cuts of 5 percent to help reduce a large budget deficit.

Haynes said that the state Legislature has made it very clear that schools falling below their enrollment targets this year might be subject to financial penalties. But she said she is hopeful that the university won't be penalized if it falls just short of the target.

Falling short of enrollment targets is not unusual this fall in the CSU system.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast earlier this month, 11 of the 23 CSU campuses said they could accept students from that region because their enrollments were below target.

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To see more of the North County Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.nctimes.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.

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Source: North County Times

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