UH-Manoa enrollment up
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Fall enrollment at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa is on target to hit its highest level in a quarter-century.
| UH-Manoa fall enrollment | |
| Year | Enrollment |
| 2004 | 21,000-plus* |
| 2003 | 19,863 |
| 2002 | 18,709 |
| 2001 | 17,601 |
| 2000 | 17,148 |
| *estimate | |
This year's increase would put annual growth since last fall somewhere between 5 percent and 6 percent, on top of a 6 percent increase the previous year, according to the office of Manoa chancellor Peter Englert.
More students mean more stress on the infrastructure, including classrooms and dormitory space.
"If we go to 22,000, we're going to break," said Englert. "We have no space at Manoa."
At its peak, enrollment reached about 22,300 in the early 1970s, according to Manoa spokesman Jim Manke. But then it gradually declined as fewer children graduated from Hawai'i's high schools.
The projected increases for the fall semester continue a steady trend that since 2001 has seen student numbers increase on almost every campus in the 10-campus UH system. At Manoa last fall, the number of students reached 19,863, with 18,709 enrolled the previous fall.
The increases parallel the presidency of Evan Dobelle but also accompany an upgrading and updating of the general core curriculum, a reorganization and streamlining of the four-year campuses and community colleges to allow improved transfer among the schools; and the fallout from Sept. 11, which sent many people back to school to upgrade their skills after they lost jobs in the economic downturn.
Also, students are seeing Manoa as offering excellent value for their tuition dollar, Englert said. But he also said he hopes the university system can begin looking at how to reconfigure its enrollment to boost the numbers of students in the community colleges even further and taper the numbers of first- and second-year students at Manoa.
"I can't add infrastructure as well as somewhere else (can)," he said.
There are about 22,000 students in the community college system, but administrators would like to see that increase to 27,000, Englert said.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
