https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/news/20180916/ua-has-plan-to-deal-if-flat-enrollment-continues
The link contains a video of an interview with UA President Bell about the management of enrollment growth. His statements are rather vague, but he seems pretty confident about the school’s enrollment management trajectory.
Honestly, thank god enrollment will not keep growing. The class sizes are massive (even for honors college), the dining halls are usually mobbed, and the libraries are always nearly full. Certainly this is to be expected with such a large increase in enrollment over such a short period of time.
You are exaggerating to say the class sizes for Honor’s College are “massive.” UA still has a larger percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students, than most schools. Both Gorgas Library and McClure Library are slated for expansion and renovation by the way. And it’s not true that the enrollment will stop growing. However, the growth will now be in graduate research programs and in the transfer student population.
At most colleges, the 100 level lecture courses are very large. The labs are usually around 25 students. That’s typical. If a student wants a smaller feel in those large lecture classes, then sit towards the front.
Even smaller/medium sized colleges have larger lecture classes. I think I’ve only seen a few exceptions.
Literature/frosh comp courses tend to be smallish (25) because the prof has to read so many papers.
As students move up into their majors, classes start shrinking. In many of my math major son’s upper division courses, the class sizes were as small as 8, but more often around 18.
This is true between the hours of 11am - 1pm, even when schools are smaller. When my older son started at Bama, Bama was MUCH smaller yet dining halls were very busy at PEAK times. This is not exclusive to Bama or large colleges.
The trick is to design your schedule to have meal breaks at off hours or right before/after the peak times. My kids would target lunch around 10am or 1-2pm, depending on their schedule and whether their schedule allowed time for breakfast. If no time for breakfast, then eating essentially a “big brunch” at 9:30-10am kept their stomachs full until the next dining hall down time in the afternoon. They usually ate dinner around 7…after their tutoring jobs were done.
It’s really not much different in the real world. Trying to get a table in a popular restaurant between 11am-1pm is difficult and usually means waiting.