Utah Valley University surpassed 39,000 students this semester making it the largest university in the state of Utah, according to recently released data from Utah State of Higher Education.
This calculation was created by counting the number of students who were enrolled at UVU the third week of fall semester. The students included in this total are concurrent, part-time and full-time students.
Although UVU did not hit 40,000 students 15 days into the beginning of the semester, the university is beyond that number as of Oct. 4 which will be reflected in a count done at the end of the semester.
The data also reported the number of full time equivalent (FTE) students, which calculated the total number of undergrad students taking 15 credit hours and grad students taking 10 credit hours. This total surpasses 26,500 students, giving UVU the title of having the largest growth in students taking on full-time course loads in Utah compared to last year’s total of
25,037 students.
“One thing that I find interesting is if you look at colleges and universities across the U.S., they’re struggling with enrollment but in Utah we keep going up. We’re leading that [growth],” said Scott Trotter, senior public relations director.
With the large and rapid growth comes the need for a change in the way the school conducts itself. One example of such change is the newly established partnership between UVU and UTA, which helps alleviate parking troubles for students and faculty by offering free rides on all UTA services.
“How can we be innovative, how can we take advantage of some of those things [hybrid, weekend and evening classes] so that we can continue to meet the needs of students and not have to rely on brick and mortar are some of the conversations we’re already having,” said Andrew Stone, associate vice president of enrollment management.
The expansion in hybrid, weekend and evening classes would benefit non-traditional students at UVU who make up about half of the students here, according to Tim Stanley, director of institutional research.
According to Stone, the growth is a welcome consequence of UVU’s mission statement which is to provide opportunity, promote student success and meet regional educational needs.
“Our growing isn’t an effort to say ‘hey we want to be at 50,000 students in five years;’ the goal isn’t to be huge; the goal is to ensure we’re providing access to education and by doing that we experience growth,” said Stone.
For more Review coverage of this issue:
Utah County will have largest population in the state according to 2017 projections
