SALISBURY -- With baby boomers' children starting to graduate from high school, Maryland's public colleges and universities must plan to teach nearly 20 percent more students over the next decade, the university system's governing board decided yesterday.
The University System of Maryland Board of Regents, meeting at Salisbury State University, approved projections of an 18 percent overall enrollment increase for the 13 state-funded colleges, universities and research institutions under its control.
If those forecasts hold, enrollment -- the equivalent of 106,000 full-time students this year -- would increase by 20,000.
Worried about how those students will be accommodated, the regents called for a report on how to limit out-of-state enrollment and how to steer applicants to specific campuses targeted for growth -- among them Towson University, with an expected 37 percent increase.
"We're probably the only organization that doesn't try to downsize," said Lance W. Billingsley, chairman of the 16-member Board of Regents.
The expected increase in enrollment poses new challenges for the university system, even as administrators savored the prospects of their first significant increase in state funds in years.
About half the increase will be in full-time undergraduate students, who now number 56,000.
Much of the undergraduate increase is expected to come from Montgomery County, whose students tend to apply only to the University of Maryland, College Park. Relatively few are attracted to the six schools slated by the regents for expansion: Coppin State College, Bowie State, Frostburg State and Towson universities, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Undergraduate enrollment at College Park is projected to increase by only 2 percent, to 21,730 students. The growth expected at Towson would increase enrollment to 14,447 students.
State colleges and universities may need to curtail out-of-state admissions to accommodate Maryland undergraduates, according to the enrollment report.
Pub Date: 4/04/98
