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Printer-Friendly ModeNumber of anticipated freshmen down
June 7, 2010 —
For the 2010-2011 school year, students will notice fewer freshmen around the SVSU campus.
“At this time, we are not anticipating to grow our incoming freshman class for the Fall 2010 term over the freshman class that we had last year in 2009,” said Jennifer Pahl, Director of Admissions.
She added that the smaller number of incoming freshmen is indicative of the current state of Michigan’s economy.
Ron Portwine, the Assistant Vice President of Business Services, said current estimates for the incoming freshman class who will live on campus in the fall is “approximately 100 [students] less” than the 1250 students who lived on campus last year.
Current numbers were not available at the time of printing, but Portwine and Pahl emphasized that the numbers are still apt to change over the summer as freshman orientation continues.
Portwine said that the numbers for freshman living on campus could also alter before the fall semester because the University is continuing to receive housing applications.
He said that the students living on campus will be “less crowded than last year.”
“It’s still very early and we are just over halfway through our freshman orientation season,” said Pahl, adding that there are “still a lot of programs to monitor” over the course of the summer to keep track of the number of incoming students.
While Portwine and the Housing Operations and Residential Life office are expecting fewer incoming freshmen to live on campus, they were still presented with a unique situation.
Although the number of incoming freshmen who plan to live on campus is down, the number of returning students appears to have gone up.
When working on housing assignments at the end of the last school year, Portwine said that there was “concern that we wouldn’t have enough bed space for everyone.”
With the numbers of incoming freshmen appearing to be less than last year, he said that the Housing office will be fortunate to offer the space to students now.
Portwine also said that, while there are plenty of students in Bay, Midland and Saginaw counties who commute to SVSU, students who are farther away from home are more likely to live in SVSU housing.
“Once students come from outside of that 50-mile radius, most tend to gravitate toward on-campus housing,” he said.
Even though the numbers for incoming students are down for the upcoming school year, Pahl is happy to make every student attending in the fall feel welcome.
“We look forward to welcoming each and every new Cardinal to campus in August.”