Dominique Davis
The Paw Print
After becoming a University in late May of this year, enrollment has began to increase here at Adams. As of the spring semester of 2012, enrollment has increased by thirty four percent since 2008. Adams State has continued to make its way to becoming an amazing school whether with new students, more possible majors, and even more wonderful facilities and buildings across campus.
Like any other college in the state of Colorado, ASU definitely has competition with continuing to enroll students into school. Although being able to get people to attend Adams is important, keeping them here is also just as important.
During this fall semester, the Freshmen class was not as large as past incoming freshmen, but they did come in at a higher quality. High quality means that their ACT scores and GPA’s were higher than the past new class of students. The higher quality of students versus the higher quantity is something that greatly helps with the retention of students. Increasing the academic growth of this University is definitely just as important as increasing the enrollment.
For the year of 2012, the freshmen class at Adams is 530 students. This number is actually lower than last year’s incoming class of 575, a record high. Many institutes around the state of Colorado will see decreasing enrollment this year and possibly the years to come, for a reason that no one is quite sure of yet.
One of the possible reasons for a decrease in enrollment at Adams and also other institutions is because of the tuition increase that every college is experiencing. It is difficult and usually rare for a school to continue to break enrollment records each and every year, and in this case, 2011 was the largest enrollment at Adams. With numbers in enrollment down this year, the Enrollment Management Program is going to continue to investigate the likely reasons for the decreasing enrollment.
The current number of students attending Adams is 3,067. Although enrollment didn’t increase for the fall of this year, the number of continuing students has remained the same, which is one goal for Adams State. Recruiting and getting new students is always vital, but keeping the same returning students is also imperative. One of the main reasons that Adams State chose to become a University was for recruiting purposes. Many colleges have different reasons for transitioning to a university, but recruiting new students was one of the main motives for becoming Adams State University.
Since becoming a University, Adams is doing all that it can in order to create a higher quality student body. By admitting fewer students that are less prepared and more students who are outstanding in academics are just a few ways that Adams is producing an outstanding academically balanced institute.
The graduate enrollment of 2012 will exceed 850, which is the highest graduation enrollment ever.
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