DiscussMormonism.com

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:00 pm**

Declining enrollment

I am worried about declining enrollments at BYU. In October 1999, President Hinckley observed that only "a small fraction of the young people of the church" have the chance to attend BYU. He then made the following request: "let us give [this opportunity] to as many as we can."

In that same year, President Merrill J. Bateman raised the enrollment cap at BYU from 27,000 students to 29,000 students. He also slightly decreased the number of credit hours required for graduation so that students could graduate a semester earlier. In theory, these changes should have moved undergraduate students through BYU more quickly and increased the total number in attendance at any one time.

Surprisingly, though, the number of full-time day students enrolled at BYU decreased by 11 percent between the fall of 2001 and the fall of 2006, from 30,235 to 26,910. Over the same time period, the number of part-time day students at BYU hardly changed, from 2,536 to 2,667.

Do the declining enrollments at BYU reflect a national trend? No, the exact opposite is true. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of undergraduate students enrolled in colleges and universities across the United States was projected to have increased by 10 percent between the fall of 2001 and fall of 2006, from 13.7 million to 15.1 million.

I hope BYU will recruit from this increasing pool of college-bound youth and restore its enrollment to 2001 levels.

Sterling Fluharty
Albuquerque, N.M.

What could this drop in enrollment mean? Are the LDS kids going to different colleges (suggesting "the Y" doesn't have the mystique it once did)? Are the LDS Kids simply drifting away from the church starting with college?

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:03 pm**

They rejected me several years ago. I predict they will now never recover but will suffer a slow, lingering death :)

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:09 pm**

I went to and graduated from the Y, but now I wish I'd gone someplace else. Maybe today's youth are increasingly coming to the same conclusion, only early enough in their life to actually do something about it.

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:37 pm**

This does not surprise me. With the rise in a quality Institute program, there's no reason to attend the Y. Serious students attend schools that are either close to home/cheaper or that are higher up the food chain in their discipline. As college gets more expensive nationwide, living far from home in Provo just gets too expensive. And we all know what I think of the quality of education available at the Y (in a few disciplines, it's top notch; in most others, it's mediocre at best and really bad at worst.)

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:40 pm**

It was an interesting experience but I am glad I left after one year.
I would hate to have Brigham Young's name on my resume..

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:45 pm**

TAK wrote:It was an interesting experience but I am glad I left after one year.
I would hate to have Brigham Young's name on my resume..

Well, I'm glad I have BYU's name on my resume - since it has one of the top 3 accounting programs in the US. It's the only reason I went there. It served it's purpose.

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:50 pm**

TAK wrote:I would hate to have Brigham Young's name on my resume..

I have BYU's name on my resume twice. I need to hurry up and get a PhD somewhere else to distract any future employer's attention. ;) Actually, it's not all that bad. My current employer never asked about the quality of my "BYU education". He looked at my transcript, my thesis, and my qualifications and made his decision based on that. My degrees are in the sciences and I feel that I am as competetive as most other scientists with degrees from other schools.

Posted: **Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:17 pm**

What's wrong with BYU?

Posted: **Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:04 am**

I highly doubt the drop is due to lack of enough people to fill the slots. They are still turning people away. They've simply adjusted their limits for whatever reasons. There very well could be a drop in applications, but this is very doubtful to be indicative of it.

I hit their accounting school too. I never did any accounting, but it was their highest ranked program at the time. Very miserable experience otherwise.

E-0

Posted: **Thu Jul 19, 2007 1:09 am**

BYU has for years been turning away most of its applicants. It is difficult--impossible--for me to believe that it can't now find enough students to match its previous enrollment levels. It seems most likely to me that the university has been reducing its admissions all on its own, though I have no idea why this would be happening.

Don

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BYU Enrollment dropping

BYU Enrollment dropping