UA breaks more records with this Fall's Freshman Class

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
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<p><a href=“http://uanews.ua.edu/2014/09/ua-enrollment-tops-36000-freshmen-bring-record-scores-gpas/”>http://uanews.ua.edu/2014/09/ua-enrollment-tops-36000-freshmen-bring-record-scores-gpas/</a> Over 2100 UA freshman for Fall 2014 have an ACT of 30 or higher! ACT at highest Fall average ever. UA is now twice as big as it was when I was there 87-91. And yet, the quality of the students has never been better. Amazing progress. </p>

<p>Here is another link at <a href=“http://www.al.com/news/tuscaloosa/index.ssf/2014/09/university_of_alabama_enrollme.html”>http://www.al.com/news/tuscaloosa/index.ssf/2014/09/university_of_alabama_enrollme.html</a>. It starts out positively, then as AL.com articles typically do, it starts to cast concern about the decreasing percentage of in state students at UA, and says it has asked UA to provide updated stats to see if the trend of increasing out of state students continued, as if that is a problem. With state funding lower than in the past, it is really good for UA to be able to attract so many out of state students willing to pay at least twice what in state students pay. </p>

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<p>Well, the number of in-state students is dropping, in percentage (19%) and total.</p>

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<p>However, that’s not really a “concern” as much as a policy question. At what % of enrollment do you set in-state students? </p>

<p>What could be a concern, and it’s not referenced in the article, is questions around resources. Does UA have the resources to support the increased number of undergrads? If not, we’ll see higher faculty to student ratios, larger classes, and issues signing up for required classes (which will push back graduation dates).</p>

<p>Does UA cap undergrad enrollment at some point, or do you they want to challenge schools like Arizona State University (58K+), and the University of Central Florida (52k+)?</p>

<p>By the way, these are the performance metrics being used by UA:</p>

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<p><a href=“http://provost.ua.edu/strategic-planning.html”>http://provost.ua.edu/strategic-planning.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Well, we know that they have hired a very large number of new faculty members over the last ten years. And the percentage of classes with less than 20 students has risen, though the overall faculty/student ratio was 1/20 as of last Fall. So, it seems that the increase in the number of
Honors classes increases the number of classes with 20 or less. </p>

<p>As for the instate question, we don’t have the data in for that yet. One problem likely to create more controversy is that any raising of admissions standards will likely decrease the number of instate students. On the other hand, when that starts happening, it will probably make UA more attractive to the state’s top students. How the administrators balance these competing dynamics, will be very interesting. </p>