Overpopulation Affects UVU

3,000 Accepted UVU Students Don’t Attend Due to Growth

Continual growth has led to an undeniable fact: UVU is now number one.

With the release of new enrollment statistics for schools in the Utah System of Higher Education, Utah Valley University has passed the University of Utah as the school with the highest enrollment in the system.

The new headcount is 33,395 students enrolled at UVU with 19,705 of them being full-time equivalent students. Since achieving university status in 2007 UVU has grown by 10,000 students.

There was over 700 new students that signed up this semester. This number could have been significantly higher had UVU had enough room. UVU President Matthew Holland said that there were an additional 3,000 students that were accepted but didn’t end up attending.

Holland said that one of problems for these students was not being able to get into classes. While Holland said the numbers aren’t important the fear is that these students aren’t going somewhere else for education, but not going altogether.

The numbers are helped due to the juniors and seniors that are staying through their programs instead of transferring, which happened in year’s past.

The problem with the growth is just that, growth.

Faculty and staff are still being hired with an increase in the amount of tuition brought to the school, but there isn’t space to put the classes or offices. Hallways are being used already, such as in the hallway from the LC to the CS building.

“We’re running out of hallways for the faculty,” Holland said.

One of the solutions for the growth comes from technology based classes. Hybrid classes, half in classroom half online, rose from 405 to 785 students, live interactive classes rose 43 percent and internet classes are up 12 percent, overall tech-based classes are up to 16 percent of total student population.

School administration said that they won’t be able to keep growing at this pace with these classes so they are looking to get more buildings to accommodate the growth.

Administration is looking for help from the state to get a new classroom building put into place. Holland called it a “bread and butter” classroom and offices building that will be 250,000 square feet. It will be around four stories and will be built north of the library.

This won’t start being built until after the science building has finished and pending state approval.