Officials with the University of Alaska Anchorage say they’re seeing their largest increase in enrollment in over a decade.
UAA Provost Denise Runge said the university had modest growth up until 2016, when total student enrollment started to decline. That includes part- and full-time students.
She said it only started to rebound a couple years ago.
“We saw a couple of percentage points in growth last year, and a couple of percentage points in the spring last year, and then this fall, we've got this 6% jump,” Runge said.
While a 6% bump in all students enrolled in classes may not sound like a lot, Runge said it puts the university in a better position than a lot of colleges across the country.
“Six percent is a big deal,” Runge said. “It is a big deal in a single year, particularly in a time when the rest of the nation is talking about something called the enrollment cliff, which has to do with demographics and fewer young people going to college.”
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that nationwide, college and universities have seen a roughly 15 percent decline in enrollment between 2010 and 2021, equalling about 2.7 million fewer students.
Officials for the statewide University of Alaska system say overall enrollment is on track to be about 5% higher than last year. The Fairbanks campus is seeing an almost 6% bump in enrollment, while the Southeast campus in Juneau has a roughly 9% decline.
In Anchorage, Runge credits the increase in enrollment to more community outreach.
“UAA, for about five years, has been super intentional at becoming more community engaged,” Runge said. “And particularly working partnerships with the two largest school districts in our region, the Anchorage School District and the Mat-Su Borough School District. And I think that work is beginning to pay off.”
Runge said the education programs and the community and technical college have seen the largest gains in enrollment. She said students are also trending younger, and are signing up for more classes.
“We saw this dramatic increase in interest in living in the dorms,” Runge said. “More students are attending full time than ever before… in many, many years. I do think it's a more traditional age student body than UAA has been seeing in the last 10 or 15 years.”
In total, UA officials anticipate a total of about 20,500 students to be enrolled statewide in both the major and satellite campuses by the end of this semester.
