Enrollment at USA surpasses 13,000 students for first time/
USA enrollment sets record high
Mobile Register, August 29, 2003 Section: A Page: 4
Author: Jeff Amy

USA president says student satisfaction, word-of-mouth account for enrollment of 13,286 students.

The University of South Alabama has 13,286 students this fall, school officials said Thursday, marking the first time the school's enrollment has topped 13,000.

The gain of 776 students equals 6.2 percent more than last fall. Both the numerical and percentage increases are the greatest fall-to-fall jumps at USA since 1989, when 8.4 percent, or 887 more students, enrolled than had the year before.

The biggest growth continues to be among graduate students. Large jumps in engineering, nursing, allied health and education graduate students pushed the total of graduate degree seekers up by 13.9 percent to 2,670 students.

On the main campus, some academic departments have worked quickly to add seats to high-demand undergraduate courses, to accommodate a record 1,441 first-time freshmen. The earlier high of 1,398 was set in fall 2001.

USA President Gordon Moulton said he thought student satisfaction and word-of-mouth accounted for growth. "It's really a consumer success," he said.

USA officials attribute the increases to a growing breadth of programs, increasing numbers of local students attending college close to home, and better efforts to keep students from dropping out. Nationwide, experts say a weak economy, an increasing need for a college degree to make a good living and a high number of college-age students are also driving growth.

More students came to USA despite a 10.6 percent tuition increase. David Stearns, USA's associate vice president for enrollment services, said he thought the impact of higher tuition had been "negligible."

USA officials want to attract more students while holding down expenses, thus raising more money from tuition to insulate the university from shaky state funding.

Melanie Corrigan, a policy analyst for the American Council on Education, said that tuition does pinch. But she said the research of the Washington, D.C.-based college research and lobbying association shows that a college degree increases earning power over a lifetime, something students understand.

"That realization becomes all the clearer during difficult economic times," Corrigan said.

She also said that increasing tuition may be causing students to save money by living at home, which could help USA attract local students, and that the number of students of traditional college age is high right now.

Last fall, when 400 more freshmen than expected enrolled at Auburn University, the school scrambled to swallow the bulge. While the system seems to have creaked in places at USA, no major breakdowns were apparent Thursday at USA. One of the first places that USA feels strain from undergraduate enrollment is in its introductory English composition courses, English 101 and 102. All undergraduates are required to pass both courses as part of a writing requirement, although some students can get out of English 101 with high test scores.

Larry Beason, an English professor who directs the English composition program, said three sections were added last week because of demand, and that they filled in less than three hours. USA had limited courses to 25 students to promote close faculty-student interaction, but increased that cap to 26 this fall to accommodate more freshmen.

Altogether, there are 1,560 seats in the two courses available this fall, up 11.4 percent from the 1,400 seats last fall. Still, Beason said he believed more students than usual were unable to get a spot.

"Certainly there is still a demand out there," he said.

In Bruce Alford's Thursday afternoon English 101 section, only 21 seats were full, reflecting the unpopularity of afternoon classes. Alford and his students were discussing class presentations. Afterward, Elizabeth Pittman, a freshman from Montgomery, said she had gotten the classes she wanted, but didn't have much choice of times.

"I had one of the last registration times, so most of the classes were full," Pittman said.

Pittman wants to major in nursing, where undergraduate enrollment grew the most over last fall - 36.4 percent - reflecting high demand for nurses. Computer science undergraduates, on the flip side, declined the most - 7.4 percent.

Dorian Klein, who was also in Alford's class, is planning to major in history, one of the students fueling a 6.7 percent gain in USA's largest academic division, the College of Arts & Sciences. Klein, who recently moved to Mobile from Texas, said her experience has been positive so far.

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be," Klein said.

The previous all-time record enrollment at USA had been 12,600, set in fall 1994. Last fall, USA had 12,510 students, just missing the mark. In the last 12 months, USA has set records for the most spring term students, with 12,138, and the most summer term students with 7,274.

Moulton refused to talk about any goal or cap for growth, saying he thought USA could serve substantially more students.

"Obviously with adequate preparation, we can continue for a long time," he said.

CUTLINES: BILL STARLING/Staff Photographer Bruce Alford teaches an English 101 class at the University of South Alabama on Thursday. Only 21 seats were full in Alford's class, reflecting the unpopularity of afternoon classes.

This article reproduced with special permission from the Mobile Register.