UA Enrollment Sets Record

A total of 16,449 students enrolled for fall classes at the University of Arkansas. That’s a 2.6 percent increase over the previous record of 16,035 set last year. Since John White became chancellor in 1997, enrollment on campus has increased by 11.6 percent, or 1,709 students. The UA has set a goal to have 22,500 students by fall 2010.r

The UA also had 1,264 transfer students this fall, the largest increase in five years.r

Retention improved by one-half a percent: 82.7 percent of the students who enrolled in the fall of 2002 returned this fall.r

Test scores also improved this fall. Entering freshmen averaged 25.4 on the ACT, a 1.6 percent increase from last year’s score of 25. Grade point averages for entering freshmen averaged 3.6, up 0.8 percent from last year.r

Concerning diversity, the number of new international students jumped 20.5 percent from 190 to 229, and the number of new Hispanic students increased by 16.3 percent from 92 to 107.r

But at the same time, the number of new black students dropped by 12.7 percent from 338 to 295 (but the number of overall black students declined only 1.7 percent from 1,022 to 1,005). The UA also saw an 8.8 percent decline in new Native American students (from 102 to 93) and 1.7 percent drop in new Asian students (from 121 to 119).