Enrollment Sets Record, Gains Slightly


Dennis O'Shea
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Homewood News and Information

     A record 16,393 students are enrolled in the university this
fall, up more than 2,000 from five years ago and more than 4,000
from the mid-1980s, the Homewood registrar's office reports.

     Though enrollment continues to rise, the increase is
slowing. This year's university-wide student body is only 63
students, or 0.4 percent, larger than last year's. The gains in
the three previous years were 2.9 percent, 4.2 percent and 5.9
percent.

     The slowdown has occurred at least in part because the
Homewood schools have completed the undergraduate enrollment
growth called for in the original five-year budget plan of 1989.
This year's Homewood undergrads total 3,444, just 40 more than
last year.

     "We're into a no-growth mode, certainly, in Arts and
Sciences [as far as undergraduates are concerned]," said Robert
J. Massa, dean of enrollment at Homewood. "Engineering has some
plans to increase the number of undergraduates, but, for the most
part, Homewood undergraduate enrollment will be stable."

     Massa said university-wide enrollment has grown every year
at least since the early 1970s, when the Homewood schools began
admitting undergraduate women. The addition of women, the planned
increase in undergraduates in the early 1990s and the steady
growth of part-time programs for adult students account for the
steady upward trend. As usual, a slight majority--about 51
percent--of this year's enrollment is part-time students.

     Total Hopkins enrollment has grown nearly 17 percent since
the fall 1990 semester, when the university had 14,033 students;
in fall 1986, Hopkins enrolled 12,226 students.

     The fastest-growing component of enrollment in recent years
is the Arts and Sciences part-time graduate program, which didn't
exist until 1992 and now enrolls 803 students at Homewood and in
Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County.

     The School of Nursing, which opened in 1984, began the 1990s
with 186 students, 69 percent of them undergraduates. This year,
the school has 526 students, a 183 percent increase in five
years. Its enrollment is almost evenly split between undergrads
and grad students.