PULLMAN – WSU continues to attract strong enrollments, reporting a record spring semester number of 24,340 students on its four campuses.
The official spring figures, based on enrollments on the tenth day of classes of the semester, show an increase of 530 students or 2.2 percent over spring 2009 numbers.
The university’s fastest-growing campus continues to be WSU Tri-Cities, which enrolled 1,508 students, an increase of 160 or 11.9 percent from last spring. Enrollment at WSU Vancouver is 2,892, up 105 students or 3.8 percent over spring 2009.
The Pullman and Spokane campuses, which are considered one campus for state enrollment reporting purposes, showed an overall increase of 265 students or 1.3 percent over spring 2009. The Pullman campus enrollment is 18,629 students and WSU Spokane has 1,311 enrolled for spring.
Enrollment as measured by full-time equivalent (FTE) students showed even a larger rate of increase university-wide, rising to 23,229, up 3.1 percent over last spring. FTE numbers reflect the number of credit hours that students are taking. The number of graduate students, who are included in the overall enrollment numbers, is up 192 from last spring.
“These enrollment totals show that, as a university, WSU is continuing to meet the needs of a broad base of students, even in the face of budget challenges,” said John Fraire, vice president for enrollment management. “There is clearly a strong demand for higher education in our state and we are doing our best to deliver the high-quality education programs to meet that demand.”
The university continued to show growth in minority enrollments. The Pullman and Spokane campuses enrolled 16.4 percent students of color in spring 2010 compared to 15.4 percent last spring. Students of color make up 17.8 percent of total enrollment at WSU Tri-Cities, up from 13.9 percent last spring. WSU Vancouver enrolled 15 percent students of color compared to 12 percent last spring.