Provost presents enrollment profile to Faculty Senate

The enrollment picture at the University of Delaware is strong, Acting Provost Dan Rich said in a presentation Oct. 1 at the Faculty Senate meeting.

During his presentation on undergraduate and graduate student demographics, Rich said undergraduate applications increased significantly from 1996 to 2001, from 14,798 to 18,224. "The yield rate of 35 percent from our admission offers puts us among the more selective institutions," he said, "and, despite the increase in incoming freshmen, we overshot our target of 3,200 by only 179 students."

"In the same five-year period, total enrollment declined slightly, from 21,380 to 20,949, based on the beginning–of–term enrollment data," Rich told the senators, "with the most significant change in the number of students taking continuing education credit courses, which dropped from 2,566 in 1996 to 1,700 in 2001."

Rich said the change reflected the fact that more people are taking non-credit professional development courses and online courses instead.

According to Rich, UD's freshman retention rate and undergraduate graduation rate hit or surpassed the national rate for highly selective institutions. The University had a retention rate of 89.1 percent over the last four years, while the nationwide rate was 85 percent. The graduation rate within five years also surpassed the nationwide rate of 66.5, with a rate of 70 percent for freshmen entering in 1995.

Illustrating most changes with statistics for the years 1996 to 2001, Rich said one of the most striking changes during the period is the increase in financial aid for undergraduates from $20 million to $80 million.

Undergraduate enrollment on the Newark campus, which was 15,528 in 1996, is now 15,731, he said.

Average SAT scores during the same period rose from 1,131 to 1,159.

Enrollment in the largest college, Arts and Science, increased by only 0.5 percent over that five-year period, Rich told the senators, whereas the colleges with the highest percentage increases were Business and Economics, 18 percent, Agriculture and Natural Resources, 12 percent, and Human Services, Education and Public Policy, 23 percent. Engineering rose 7 percent, and Health and Nursing Sciences was unchanged, he said.

Of the total 2001 undergraduate population, 59 percent are women and 41 percent are men; Delaware residents make up 40.3 percent; 5.6 percent of the total are black, 2.6 percent are Hispanic and 2.8 percent are Asian.

Turning to graduate students, Rich said that the University awarded 162 Ph.D. degrees in 2000, the largest number of doctoral degrees ever. The number of graduate applications has also increased from 4,473 in 1998 to 5,208 this past year, he said. About 36 percent of the applicants are accepted, which compares with the 47 percent graduate acceptance rate nationwide.

"Prior to the implementation of the graduate tuition policy in 1997, there were 1,745 full-time and 1,503 part-time graduate students," he said. "This year, we have 2,171 full-time graduate students and 771 part-time, which reflects a major increase in full-time enrollment since 1997."

Graduate funding also has doubled over the last 10 years, from $20 million to $40 million, he said. "Eighty-five percent of our full-time graduate students receive financial support," he said, "which is higher than most comparable schools in the region."

The percentage of graduate students to the total student population has remained around 16 percent over the last decade, Rich said, comparing UD to Pennsylvania State University at 12 percent and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University at 15 percent.

Ethnicity of the University's graduate students in 2001 reflects 1.76 percent of Hispanic background, 2.32 percent of Asian background and 4.45 percent African American. Some 22.13 percent of UD's graduate student population is made up of international students.

In addition to undergraduate, graduate and continuing education enrollment, the University also offers professional development programs, including teacher education and Cooperative Extension courses, Rich said. "Nearly 12,000 practitioners take advantage of the professional development programs sponsored by various UD centers," he said.

The student demographic information will be available soon on the Faculty Senate web site [www.udel.edu/facsen/].