In January, Penn State President Graham Spanier said the university had no intentions of letting freshmen enrollment in the fall of 2007 be as high as it was in 2006.
Based on statements made at last Friday's B oard of Trustees meeting, their intentions have parlayed into reality.
"We established a decade ago a range from 40 to 42 thousand students [as an enrollment ceiling]," Spanier said. "We are turning away very highly qualified students."
The goal set last fall was to limit enrollment for the fall 2007 semester to no more than 7,000 freshmen. Robert Pangborn, vice president and dean of undergraduate education, said the actual number of prospective students who accepted their offer of admission is roughly 6,870 -- nearly 1,150 students less than last year's freshmen enrollment and more than 100 below the set goal.
Pangborn called the class size "intentionally smaller."
Last year's enrollment surpassed the proposed ceiling, totaling 42,914 full-time students, a jump of 2,205 students from the previous school year. The increase was due in large part to the largest incoming class ever of 8,025 students -- a jump from 2005's enrollment of 6,489, according to www.budget.psu.edu.
Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said last year's number of applications reached 94,000, one of the highest numbers of applications in the country. Spanier said in January that applications were already up 5,700 from that time last year.
Mahon said there were a number of reasons for the high application numbers.
"[Penn State] is a great institution with strong academic programs and faculty who are among the best in the world in their fields," he wrote in an e-mail message.
Last year's record high enrollment caused many problems. The university was forced to add extra sections of more freshmen-oriented courses, including 32 additional sections of Spanish 3 (Intermediate Spanish), 24 sections of English 15 (Rhetoric and Composition) and 16 sections of Math 110 (Techniques of Calculus I).
Pangborn said that now sophomore-oriented courses must be expanded to meet needs generated by last year's larger freshmen class.
"Back in January and February of the spring semester, I provided lists of the most commonly taken courses by sophomores to all the different colleges at University Park and information on how many sections had been offered in past years," he said. "The proposals were reviewed mid-spring so that the sections could be put in place during the class registration process."
Some of the courses that were expanded include Economics 002 (Introduction Microeconomic Analysis and Policy), Communications Arts and Sciences 100 (Effective Speech), Accounting 211 (Financial and Managerial Accounting for Decision Making) Statistics 200 (Elementary Statistics) and Communications 150 (Cinema).
Spanier said there were serious issues to contend with regarding the higher numbers the university could bring into the State College area. He listed possible problems with the general ambiance, the infrastructure of State College, an increased workforce, more cars and traffic and the need for larger police, fire and maintenance forces.
"I'm not sure our community is geared up for that kind of expansion, and there's a point at which it begins to change in culture," Spanier said. "It would say a lot about central Pennsylvania, but then there's also the factor of at what point does the university get too big for its own good?"
He said that for all the benefits expanding the school could have, it would all be outweighed by the economies of scale.
Spanier also pointed out the politics of accepting too many students, saying that Penn State has "brand name appeal" that yields a lot of interest from prospective students.
"If we were to grow in size, that would be students we'd be taking away from our other campuses," he said. "There are a lot of variables out there we need to be mindful of."
