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SOURCE: Charlotte Observer
01.05.07
UNCC on pace for 35,000 students?
Enrollment by 2020 is expected to jump by 14,000 students
By: April Bethea
UNC Charlotte will need to accommodate another 14,000 students by 2020 because of growth in the region and other factors.
That would bring the school to 35,000 students, according to a preliminary task force report on long-range enrollment. A final report is due soon and will be discussed by university trustees in February.
Chancellor Phil Dubois shared the early findings with the board during a retreat Thursday.
Dubois said the numbers were not a surprise, and the projected target is "a goal that is both achievable and necessary if we're going to serve the region properly in higher education in the years ahead."
UNCC had 21,519 students in the fall semester and has been one of the fastest-growing schools in the UNC system during the last decade. Current UNC system projections have the Charlotte school with 30,905 students in 2016.
Leaders now will have to figure out how to accommodate the growth, including whether to add more satellite campuses, deciding what new academic programs to offer and whether admissions standards should be stiffened.
The report said the school would have about 4,655 freshmen and 3,150 transfers by 2020 if retention rates remained constant and no new graduate programs were offered.
UNCC's future student body would be about 75 percent undergrad by 2020 and, like the rest of the region, be more ethnically diverse. It also said there will be a need for more students with business, education, engineering and nursing experience, and more graduate-level programs at the school.
The task force used a variety of data for the report, including projections estimates for the region and analysis of universities with similar demographics and growth trends as UNCC.
