Penn State Enrollment Reflects Management Plan
October 30, 2000
University Park, Pa. — Following a well-defined enrollment management plan, Penn State’s Fall 2000 enrollment is 81,270 students — an increase of 397 students over last year — with the modest growth occurring primarily among upper-division students at the 19 undergraduate campuses.

"We established a slow-growth enrollment management plan several years ago to stabilize enrollments at the University Park campus and to allow modest growth in the number of juniors and seniors at other campus locations," says John Romano, vice provost and dean for enrollment management. "Despite the huge pressure of more than 78,000 applicants, we remain committed to the plan of managed growth, and as this year’s figures show, we are right on target." The enrollment at University Park is 40,571, down 87 from Fall 1999.

"In 1996, Penn State restructured its statewide system to provide increased opportunities to upper-division students so that they could complete their degrees at a campus other than University Park. Many students had told us that they were location bound by family or job responsibilities and wanted their local Penn State campus to offer baccalaureate degree programs," says Romano.

Penn State now offers a limited number of baccalaureate degrees at its undergraduate campuses, programs that, by local surveys, have demonstrated market need in the region and that were developed with the encouragement of community leaders. One such program is the Information Sciences and Technology baccalaureate degree, which is offered at several campuses .

"We are especially pleased that our minority enrollment has grown again this year, with an increase particularly among Hispanic students," Romano says. Students of color now comprise 10.6 percent of the total student body, a steady increase since 1990 when minority enrollment was 6.7 percent of the total enrollment.