As Enrollment Climbs, Caliber and Diversity of UConn Students Also Increases

Five years ago, at the start of the 2008-09 school year, published reports trumpeted that “UConn is expecting about 300 more freshmen this fall compared to last, making the 3,500-strong class the largest in the school's history.  Déjà vu all over again, as students arrive on campus to begin the 2013-14 academic year. The state’s flagship university reports a freshman class of “approximately 3,750 members – the largest in the school’s history.”

UConn is also pointing with pride at a freshman class that has:

• an average SAT score of 1233, which outpaces last year’s incoming freshmen, whose average of 1226 had set the previous UConn record;
• the most diverse group of students that UConn has ever recruited, with 27 percent of its members representing minority groups;
• the largest number of Honors Program students (456) to enroll in UConn in a single year;
• 149 valedictorians and salutatorians in the freshman class (continuing steady growth from 43 in 2002, according to the Daily Campus).

UConn’s new freshmen class draws 32 percent of its students from other states, the same level as in 2002.  In 2010, the Connecticut Post reported that out-of-state students made up 35 percent of the 3,339 freshmen who started their college careers at UConn's main campus and more than 26 percent of all 4,580 freshmen across the university's main and five regional campuses. That was up from 17 percent in 1995.

This summer, a record number of UConn students enrolled in summer school, taking advantage of incentives that include lower tuition and half-priced housing.  More than 8,800 students enrolled in one or both of the school's summer sessions, according to school officials.  That is up 22 percent from 2009, the year before the school began offering housing incentives for its summer programs.

UConn President Susan Herbst told the Day of New London this week that UConn plans to hire 259 new faculty members, 200 of whom will be teach the so-called STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and math - and will enroll an additional 6,580 undergraduates in the coming years, after legislative approved of Gov. Malloy’s plan for more than $1.5 billion in bonding and $137 million from the state's general fund for "Next Generation Connecticut."  Total enrollment last fall was 30,250, including more than 17,000 undergraduates on its main campus in Storrs.

A decade ago, in October 2002, UConn reported that “freshmen enrollment at the Storrs campus has increased so significantly over the last five years that it will be maintained at about 3,200 students for the next few years."

Official  enrollment figures for the 2013-14 academic year will not be available until September.