A UTRGV enrollment report shows a preliminary 29,973 students have enrolled for classes as of last Friday, up more than 3% from last year. This number includes enrollment in the School of Medicine and both undergraduate and graduate programs.
The report, accessible through the Strategic Enrollment website, shows an increase by at least 5% for sophomore and senior level students, respectively, and a more than 2% increase in junior level students but a decrease by at least 6% in freshman level students.
Senior Vice President for Strategic Enrollment and Student Affairs, Maggie Hinojosa, explains that the numbers are based on credit hours, not years in school, and that many students who enter have some sort of dual credit.
“About 60% of our freshman class comes with some sort of dual credit,” Hinojosa said. “By the time they hit the spring semester guess what they’re sophomores…That’s just anybody who’s classified as a freshman, so technically we could have a second-year student who did not complete enough hours to be a sophomore who is still a freshman.”
Hinojosa explains why there is a drop in Spring enrollment from the Fall semester.
“Spring to fall, we have an influx of 5,000 new students, you don’t have that fall to spring,” she said. “So there are not high schools that really graduate a significant number of students in the Fall.”
Hinojosa said it’s an entire university effort to grow enrollment.
“When it comes to enrollment it’s just not what happens in strategic enrollment, in student affairs, this is the entire campus,” she said. “Student success plays a huge role, Academic Affairs and Health Affairs or faculty or deans, This enrollment is everybody’s role.”
A larger increase came in the Graduate College, up more than 48% from last Spring. Executive Vice President for Research, Graduate Studies and New Program Development, Parwinder Grewal, says there are multiple factors such as new graduate programs, scholarships and COVID-19 relief assistance that have contributed to enrollment growth.
Grewal said another factor for increased enrollment comes from the pandemic.
“Right now because of the pandemic many people have lost jobs,” he said. “Because of that, most people use that time to enroll into graduate programs, something that they always wanted to do and something that they think that they can get a better job with. So that is one aspect.”
Grewal also said the university plans to add more programs such as Doctors of Physical Therapy and Doctors of Pharmacy which poise the university to compete against larger schools across the state.
“UTRGV is poised for big success. It’s poised for success not only in providing many more graduate programs but enhancing its research capacity,” he said. “By adding these Ph.D. programs we are emerging as a research university.”
Hinojosa said “somos familia” a popular phrase to signify unity. It’s being close to family that Exercise Sciences senior Cailey Granado said is a likely reason students choose to attend UTRGV.
“At least speaking for myself and my culture like the Hispanic culture is very family-oriented so we do a lot of things as a family,” Granado said. “I think maybe more people are seeing that now like that’s why they stay.”
The Spring semester starts today and an official census will happen on January 27.
For Vaquero News, I’m Justin Elizalde.
