Ball State is growing, but at what cost?
The university announced that, for the 2003-2004 academic year,80 percent of last year's freshmen returned, the highest retentionrate during the 17 years the statistic has been tracked.
For the past five years, overall student enrollment hasincreased. The on-campus student population grew to 18,310 thisfall, 250 more than in 2002-2003.
Doug McConkey, vice president for student affairs and enrollmentmanagement, projects on-campus enrollment to gradually increase toand stabilize at 19,500 students.
But at this time, the university lacks the necessary on-campushousing space to accommodate that kind of population expansion.
Residence halls are already overflowing. Currently, 36 studentsare living in converted study lounges, down from 90 at the start ofthe semester.
Alan Hargrave, director of the Housing and Residence Lifeoffice, said the lounges could comfortably house 200 students, butwithout creating more on-campus living options, the university willnever realize its long-term enrollment goals.
Massive funds will have to be procured for the university tobuild another residence hall. But until they do, or decide to allowfreshmen to live off-campus, the growth of the student populationhas to be limited.
McConkey said, "We have worked very hard in getting the messageout about Ball State. Students see us as a high quality andattractive university."
And Ball State is a high quality and attractive university.
But the administration can't expect to admit more students untilit has room for them to live.
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