OSU-Cascades grows; Corvallis campus caps growth

Oregon State University – Cascades said Thursday its enrollment is now 1,172 students, including 980 juniors, seniors and graduate students, up nearly 6 percent from a year ago at a time when a better economy has meant enrollment declines at many schools around the country.

The enrollment figure also includes 192 dually-enrolled students preparing to transfer to OSU-Cascades as they take primarily freshmen and sophomore classes at Central Oregon Community College.

The branch campus’s official enrollment report represents a 4 percent increase in juniors and seniors. Graduate enrollment increased by 10 percent. It also represents a 9 percent increase in full-time equivalents, as students increasingly take full-time course loads. About 78 percent of students are enrolled full-time, including dually-enrolled students.

The ethnic diversity of the student body remains at about 14 percent, with half of those students identifying as Hispanic.

OSU-Cascades continues to draw students primarily from Central Oregon and Oregon, although students also represent California and 12 other states.

The increase spread across several majors, with the largest majors now reported as business administration, human development and family sciences, natural resources, exercise and sport science, biology, energy systems engineering and psychology. The recently launched computer science degree has 17 students.

The largest graduate program is the counseling degree program with 60 students. The Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing, now in its second year, is the fastest growing program increasing from 7 to 18 students this fall.

OSU-Cascades is also serving an additional 64 Central Oregon students who are taking OSU online courses.

The percentage of female students remained at 60 percent of the student body. Women comprised about 70 percent of the student population through 2010. The average age of an OSU-Cascades student is 29. The youngest enrolled student is 17; the oldest is 73.

To learn more about OSU-Cascades, visit www.OSUcascades.edu.

OSU tops 30,000 students, reins in Corvallis growth

Oregon State University said Thursday it has surpassed 30,000 in overall enrollment for the first time in the school’s history, fueled by the continued growth of its online distance learning Ecampus program and the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend.

At the same time, the university has succeeded in slowing the growth on its Corvallis campus to less than 1 percent, meeting a goal OSU had established with community stakeholders and leaders.

“As Oregon’s statewide university, we take seriously our mandate to provide access to as many qualified in-state students as we can,” said OSU President Edward J. Ray. “At the same time, we are nearing our present capacity on the Corvallis campus and thus slowing our growth has been a priority. This is a win-win situation for the university, Corvallis and the state of Oregon.”

Official enrollment numbers are reported at the end of the fourth week of fall term.

Oregon State’s overall enrollment is 30,058 students, of which 24,383 are enrolled through the Corvallis campus (an increase of 0.9 percent or 225 students over last year); 4,503 are enrolled through Ecampus (up 19.5 percent or 736 more students from a year ago); and 1,172 are enrolled in and/or admitted to OSU-Cascades (up 5.5 percent or an increase of 61 students from a year ago). OSU’s overall enrollment increased 1,022 students from a year ago – an overall change of 3.5 percent.

Oregon State’s fall enrollment is the largest among all Oregon universities. A total of 69 percent of all undergraduate students at OSU are from the state of Oregon.

“Oregon State continues to be a destination of choice — not just for Oregon students in general, but for high-achieving students in particular – 44.2 percent of all incoming freshmen attending OSU this fall had a high school grade point averages of 3.75 or higher,” Ray said.

Oregon State has set a goal of having 50 percent of its incoming freshmen class classified as high-achieving by the year 2025. Last year, the percentage of high-achieving freshmen enrolled at OSU was 39 percent. Meanwhile, the average high school grade point for all incoming Oregon State freshmen this fall was 3.59.

The university also has succeeded in boosting its enrollment of U.S. students of color , which now stands at 21.9 percent of the overall student body, and of its international enrollment, which is 11.1 percent.

Graduate student enrollment rose 5.5 percent over last year to a total of 4,410 students.

“These areas of growth align with the enrollment management goals that we had set out in our strategic plan for diversifying the campus and growing our graduate student enrollment,” Ray said.