TERRE HAUTE — Indiana State University wants to increase its enrollment to 14,000 by 2017.
Officials are expected to discuss that strategic plan goal, and others, during an ISU board of trustee seminar this morning, just prior to the regular board meeting.
“I think it’s realistic,” President Dan Bradley said Thursday. “My guess is that one-quarter to one-third [of the increase] would be distance education students.”
The number of distance education students has been growing significantly, he said.
The growth would not be concentrated at just the freshmen level, he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to add 2,000 more freshmen.”
The growth would be distributed among freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, and retention will be a key factor.
While the number of seniors went down slightly this fall, he expects that to increase in the future as large freshmen classes from the past few years work their way through the system.
“I think 14,000 is a reasonable target,” Bradley said. At its peak in 1971, ISU had 13,533 students. “That was with significantly fewer facilities and no distance education students to speak of. The handling capacity is there,” he said.
Last week, ISU announced that its fall 2012 enrollment was 12,114, the highest in almost 20 years.
With ISU’s student body exceeding 12,000 students this fall, the university is two years ahead of its previously established enrollment goals.
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