Romano added that because the university does not want the number of students in the program to rapidly increase, enrollment has been limited to a total of 800 students, or 200 from each academic year.

James Thomas, dean for IST, said the reason the college uses this limit is because of the number of faculty members.

"We actually have a limit of 200 students a year because we are trying to grow the amount of faculty members at a rate that would accept the number of students," he said.

"We don't want to have a sudden spike in enrollment in a new program that is just getting on its feet with new faculty."

Joseph Lambert, senior associate dean for IST, said the numbers are at a good place.

Despite steady enrollment in the university's program, Romano said the public needs to become aware of the IST program.

"There is still work that is underway to help the larger public, citizens of Pennsylvania and beyond, understand what IST is about and how it fits into the array of academic offerings at Penn State," he said.

Lambert said that Penn State's IST graduates have been doing well in the job market and that the public needs to be aware of the success the program has.

"The message is that over 90 percent of graduates got positions at an average of $52,000 a year," he said.

Thomas said that Information Technology (IT) programs throughout the country are seeing a general decline in their numbers of students, but this is something Penn State has not experienced.

"IT programs across the country are getting hammered with enrollments in terms of decline while we're moving right along," he said.

A drop anywhere from 25 to 75 percent has occurred in the national enrollment, Thomas said, but IST graduated about 150 students and still brought in more in terms of enrollment than the year before.

"Last year was our first graduating class, and we made those numbers up and still have a growth in total enrollment," he said.

Romano said that the IST program will one day reach its peak in enrollment.

"We do not expect to have a school that grows forever," he said. "IST will reach a point where there are the proper number of students."