Fall Enrollment Hits All-Time High

Please note: The story below was based on preliminary enrollment figures. The final SHSU fall enrollment figure is 15,935. The official 2005 fall enrollment was 15,357.

Sam Houston State University's enrollment for the 2006 fall semester is 15,903, an increase of 585 students or 3.8 percent more than the fall of 2005 and a new all-time record.

James F. Gaertner, SHSU president, has repeatedly told groups that he feels that SHSU's construction and renovation efforts, its award-winning retention program, its commitment to maintaining a faculty/student ratio at about 1:22, and increasing average admission scores have added to SHSU's attractiveness to potential students.

The Bearkat Village, Sam Houston Village, and Raven Village apartment-style housing projects completed in the past three years seem to be popular with students who prefer to live near the campus. Several new housing projects have been completed in the nearby community.

The university will be starting several construction projects in the near future, including a new Mall Area that will require the removal of the Wilson and Frels buildings, scheduled to begin sometime around December. This green space is expected to make an already-attractive campus even more pleasant.

Also planned is a 143,000 square feet Academic Building V that is expected to begin in March and will house the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Other high-priority projects include surface parking and a Performing Arts Center.

"Over the past four and a half years, we have spent about $150 million on construction at Sam Houston State, and over the next two years, we will probably spend about another $40-45 million," Gaertner said recently.

SHSU is not only attracting more students, but is keeping more, he points out. The freshman one-year retention rate is at approximately 70 percent, up almost 8 percent in the past five years and the minority population is 28 percent, an increase Gaertner attributed, in part, to the Student Advising and Mentoring Center.

Almost half of the university's new students are transferring from community colleges. Articulation agreements with a number of benefits for community college students have been signed with 13 different community colleges.

In the past week SHSU has signed agreements with San Jacinto College and the Dallas County Community College District, and SHSU and McLennan Community College will sign an agreement Friday.

—END—

SHSU Media Contact: Frank Krystyniak
Sept. 21, 2006
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu.