Kent State University enrollment increases from last year

Anchor Intro: Each year, Kent State receives more and more applications for admission. Alyssa Haberman has the story on why enrollment increased this year and how the university plans to address the issue.

You may have noticed that it seems like that there are more students on Kent State’s campus this year than you remembered.

Well that’s because there is. According to the RPIE (Research, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness) Reports, there are 20,373 undergraduate students enrolled at Kent’s main campus for the Fall 2014 semester—that’s 300 more students than in Fall 2013.

Part of this increased enrollment number at Kent State is the result of an unexpected jump in freshman retention this year, from 77%-81%. As a result, Kent State experienced another overflow of students living on campus.

Although the university has seen record enrollment numbers in the past few years that will soon change. Kent State is focusing on enrolling higher quality students rather than a higher quantity.

“Our strategy here at Kent State is the build our quality of the freshman class coming in, and that means a stronger high school GPA, higher ACT test score, and so we’re becoming more selective,” said Dave Garcia, the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at Kent State.

By enrolling freshman with higher GPAs and test scores, Kent States hopes to continue to increase their retention rate over the coming years, and slowly decrease the amount of new freshman they enroll.

By Fall 2015, Kent State is looking to reduce the incoming freshman class to about 4,200 students. That’s 50 students less than this year.