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While
enrollment at Brigham Young University-Idaho took a big jump during the
past year, don’t expect to see the same kind of increase any time
soon.
A
strong effort is being made to hold enrollment at about the current level
until additional buildings and personnel are in place.
Currently,
the official enrollment count stands at a full time equivalent of 10,119
students (based on students taking an average of 15 credits).
This
official enrollment number was slightly higher than anticipated for fall,
and the university is hoping to see the winter semester FTE possibly drop.
“Our
best guess is we’ll be about the same for winter, but I’d be ecstatic if we
were down just a little bit,” says Jeff Sorensen, assistant director of
admissions.
University
projections for fall 2003 stand at 10,100 FTE (the same as this year),
10,600 FTE for fall 2004 and a maximum of 11,600 FTE for fall 2005.
The
added growth will be possible as new classroom and office space come on
line and more employees are hired.
University
Registrar Kevin Miyasaki explains there is a difference between the
official enrollment (FTE) and actual head count. Both numbers are valuable
and will be reported by the university in the future.
Currently,
the head count stands at 10,703 compared to the FTE of 10,119. He says the
FTE is calculated by dividing the total number of credit hours being taught
by 15. The FTE is lower than the actual head count because the average
student is taking 14.2 credits.
Some
entities like the Housing Office and ecclesiastical units prefer to know
the head count in order to plan appropriately, while the FTE figure is
critical to planning in other administrative areas like the Admissions
Office and Academics.
“The
FTE count is commonly used by universities and is an excellent budgeting
tool. It helps us figure how many faculty we need and our services,”
Miyasaki says. “On the other hand, the FTE count doesn’t mean much to
people who are concerned about housing. They are more concerned with the
actual number of people.”
Fall
semester FTE grew from 8,573 in 1999, to 8,825 in 2000, to 8,862 in 2001 to
10,119 in 2002.
The
head count for the same time period grew from 8,628 in 1999, to 8,949 in
2000, to 9,200 in 2001, to 10,703 in 2002. # # #
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