UA Enrollment Tops 27,000
by August 25, 2016 1:42 pm 170 views
A record number of University of Arkansas students have registered for the fall semester, according to preliminary numbers.
Enrollment has risen 1 percent to 27,065 students, up from 26,754 in the fall 2015 semester.
As more students enroll through Monday, the number will change, said Suzanne McCray, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions.
Another record is the size of the freshmen class, which is comprised of 5,022 students.
The number of Arkansans who have enrolled continues to grow, with 15,210 so far, and is expected to exceed the fall 2015 total of 15,237, McCray said. Also, the number of residents who are new freshmen has increased 1 percent to 2,466, from 2,432 in fall 2015.
While students continue to be attracted from outside the state, recruitment efforts are in line with the Chancellor Joe Steinmetz’s goal to admit “more Arkansans than we ever have before.” The university aims for a 50-50 balance of in-state and out-of-state students.
“The university made a concerted effort to increase the number of Arkansas students in this freshman class,” McCray said. “We did this while enhancing the academic quality of this class, which comes to the university with a record overall high school grade point average of 3.68, and an ACT score average of 26.3. In this freshman class 25 percent of the students are in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, and more than half of them are in the top 25.”
UA enrollment has increased by nearly 51 percent since 2006.
Official enrollment numbers will be released after the 11th day of classes, which is Sept. 6.