<p>Looking at Hopkins we notice that over the years (Ok, more than 20 since friends have graduated), the graduating class has increased. Twenty plus years ago that size was about 600+ students, I believe. Now its about 1200+ students. About double. </p>
<p>Does anyone know if that growth occurred slowly, over the past two decades, or did the increase in class size occur over just a few years? As a result, are there many more course offerings and more professors per department, or existing classes are more crowded? Has anyone read about why the increase over time? Thanks.</p>
<p>In the last five years the graduating classes have gone from a little more than 1100 students to around 1250 (plus or minus a few). This is a natural consequence of much more students applying to college. I didn’t notice the increase in size over my four years. If you’re worried about the class size suddenly swelling to 2000 people, it won’t happen any time soon (most likely).</p>
<p>Very slowly…literally over the 20 years. This is the same at most of the top schools including Penn, Duke and Harvard. Princeton just finished a strategic push to increase their class.</p>
<p>Hopkins is capped now due to housing.</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses.</p>
<p>As has already been stated, increases have been occurring at all research universities over the last 20 years and Hopkins is no different. I am in my 9th admissions cycle now for Hopkins and the target enrollment for the freshman class has ranged during these years from 1200 - 1275. There are no short-term (nor long-term) plans that I am aware of to grow the size of the undergraduate population, and in fact the current size is over-enrolled as the Class of 2013 is quite big. All targets I am aware of is to keep the undergraduate population between 4500 - 5000 total, which keeps Hopkins as the second smallest national research university for undergraduates. Just look at the class size stats: [U-CAN:</a> Johns Hopkins University](<a href=“http://members.ucan-network.org/jhu]U-CAN:”>http://members.ucan-network.org/jhu)</p>
<p>Student:Faculty Ratio = 12:1
Classes of 2-19 students = 575
Classes of 20-39 students = 171
Classes of 40-99 students = 78
Classes of 100+ = 41</p>
<p>Much of the growth happened in the late 80s and 90s, and yes with that growth came more faculty, more staff, and more facilities to accommodate the students. In fact, many JHU alumni of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s when they return to campus are pretty surprised by the vast changes in the physical campus and the approach taken by the University.</p>