President Graham Spanier spoke to members of the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County last week and announced the university plans to keep the number of students at 40,000 to 42,000. He said that higher enrollment could have a negative effect on local housing and apartment markets.

Spanier added he was concerned with the quality of life in the Centre region because it is a factor in attracting new faculty and staff. Enrollment control is important and Penn State has done a good job keeping a flexible enrollment cap in the past few years.

State College is too small to handle too many more students.

There are already problems with housing on campus, and enrolling more students would put a strain on the dorms, especially because some students already enrolled were upset last week that they didn't get a housing contract. About 1,200 students received supplemental housing contracts, and at least 800 were rejected.

State already has put much effort into building facilities for the 40,000 students it has now. Adding more students would only decrease the quality of education. Students deserve smaller classrooms and many do voice concern about the size of the already existing classes. With more students at the university, there only would be an additional strain on the number of students already large classes.