The University of Colorado at Boulder expects to enroll a record number of students this fall 聳 about 25,800 聳 according to current estimates.
If those figures hold, fall 1999 enrollment will be about 650 students higher than fall 1998 and more than 200 ahead of the previous high enrollment of 25,571 in 1991.
Although actual enrollment figures will not be available until mid-September, a breakdown of the fall 1999 student body shows about 17,600 in-state students (68 percent) attending CU-Boulder this fall and 8,200 from out of state. About 21,350 (83 percent) will be undergraduate students and 4,450 will be graduate students.
The number of graduate students is down slightly from last year's figure of 4,530, which the university聮s Office of Planning, Budget and Analysis attributes to the lure of a strong economy and job market.
The university expects about 4,500 new freshmen this fall, up from last year's 4,281. Lou McClelland, director of Institutional Analysis, said a 12.5 percent jump in resident freshman applications and higher enrollment this year by Colorado resident freshmen and transfers indicates strong interest among Coloradans in attending CU-Boulder.
The expected number of transfer students at 1,475 is up 11 percent, and the university expects more minority undergraduate students than the 3,357 who enrolled last year. About the same number of international students is expected, approximately 1,000.
While the total student population is expected to rise by almost 3 percent, the ratio between men and women is expected to stay pretty much the same as last year with slightly more men (53 percent) on the Boulder campus, bucking a national trend toward higher percentages of women.
The Planning, Budget and Analysis office also notes that the change in number of new undergraduates varies among colleges. For example, the projected change from last year ranges from under 5 percent in engineering to more than 20 percent in education and environmental design.
At the College of Arts and Sciences, which offers all of the courses that make up CU's core curriculum, Dean Peter Spear said the college is preparing for "a huge crunch" this fall as a record number of new students arrive.
And because of a new "confirmed registration" procedure which sets fall schedules for new students during summer orientation, Spear said the college "is adding classes as we go and as we see how enrollments are shaping up."
The college is gearing up to handle increased demand for core courses by adding sections and hiring additional part-time instructors. The college also is hiring 29 "outstanding" new tenure-track faculty, Spear said, but those hires primarily fill faculty vacancies and do not reflect increases, he said.
"The increase isn't just in the core courses," Spear said. "The number of students entering arts and sciences majors is up too. For example, we've had a large increase in the number of students entering in MCD (molecular, cellular and developmental) biology."
At the business college, enrollment is expected to be up by approximately 63 new freshmen over last fall (13 percent) and 10 new transfers (10 percent).
Bill Henry, assistant to the dean of the College of Architecture and Planning which offers the bachelor of environmental design, said the college had 107 new students last year and was expecting between 25 and 30 more this fall. That increase will not cause any "dramatic changes," he said.
The main adjustment will be in adding some studio sections for beginning level technical drawing among architectural and planning students. Henry said classes were lighter in the spring semester so the extra students could then be absorbed into existing programs.
At the School of Education, Director of Teacher Education Linda Molner said enrollment planning is running smoothly, with a couple of areas where extra course sections could be added if necessary. Molner said more students were expected in the masters聮 programs this fall and as a result, classes there could be a little larger.