YSU enrollment to exceed 15,000

June 2, 2010 at 12:07a.m.

By HAROLD GWIN

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown State University expects student enrollment to surpass the 15,000 mark this fall.

That’s well above the 14,682 students who enrolled in fall 2009, which was the highest number on campus in 17 years.

Jack Fahey, interim vice president for student affairs and university ombudsman, told the university’s board of trustees Tuesday that projections show a 2.6 enrollment increase over last year. It should reach 15,058 this fall, he said.

That level of growth should generate $2.6 million in new tuition revenue, he said, noting that $800,000 of that amount will go to the members of the Association of Classified Employees union under terms of an enrollment-incentive clause negotiated in the union’s last contract. The money will be divided among about 400 union members.

Fahey offered a couple of factors that support the projected enrollment increase.

The growth in undergraduate numbers in fall 2009 — up 7.1 percent over fall 2008 — should translate into a significant increase in returning students, he said.

The spring 2010 high school graduating classes in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties is estimated at 8,095, Fahey said, some 1,000 more that last year’s class. YSU should attract a higher number of those students, perhaps as many as 1,500, he said.

Recent application data show the number of accepted students for this fall is already 655 above the same time last year, an increase of 20 percent, he said. Registration for financial aid and student housing are also running ahead of last year, he said.

The high rate of growth last fall in undergraduate student transfers, the return of former students who left school and enrollment of students who graduated from high school in the past and decided to enroll in college are not likely to be repeated this fall, but overall enrollment is still expected to rise, Fahey added.