The total number of students enrolled at the University has increased by around 1 percent for this fall semester; there are now 20,480 students — an all-time high.

Fall freshmen and transfers enrollment is especially high as 4,331 new students came to campus this semester — another record.

Never in the history of the University have so many new students come to campus. Further growth, however, will probably stop, because of physical constrains, according to administrators.

“We are doing very well,” Gary Swegan said, director of admissions. “The BGSU head count enrollment is actually the highest it’s ever been. Only five times in the history of BGSU we have exceeded 20,000. Last year we had a record enrollment and this year it’s even higher than that.”

However, growth in enrollment in some colleges in Northwest Ohio is even higher. University of Toledo boasts a 2.8 percent increase in total enrollment, and Owens Community College is up 7.1 percent.

But this doesn’t disappoint University officials. They pointed out the positive constant growth in enrollment during the last few years.

“The thing you have to be aware of is that in 1996 our total head count enrollment was only 18,235, and now we are bigger, and a lot of our gains came in 1998 to 2000 years range, when, for instance, the University of Toledo was way down,” Swegan said. “Their increase this year will still not probably put them back where they would like to be by historical standards.”

According to Swegan, there is a correlation between fees and enrollment.

“Certainly we know that a percentage of our prospective student population is very fee-sensitive”, Swegan said. “So what we have to strive to do, when we are a more expensive option than other institutions is to provide enough financial assistance, be it through scholarships or a need-based type of aid.”

University officials say the current number of students and the pace of new enrollment is what they want.

“My belief is that we are pretty happy with our enrollment level right now,” Swegan said. “If we are able to continue to bring in 4,200 to 4,300 new students during the fall semester, we would be in pretty good shape.”

“Much larger than that puts a lot of stress and strain on the University’s physical resources, Swegan said. “And much smaller is a problem too, because you are not generating the number of fee dollars that you need to pay faculty and to support all the facilities.”

Among other reasons for the increase, Swegan cites partnership with community schools and advertising. According to Swegan, the colleges that have the highest increase, are the College of Technology, the School of Art and the College of Education.

It is not only undergraduates who are growing in numbers. Graduate student enrollment is also increasing. “We enjoyed this year, an eight to ten percent increase in the overall graduate enrollment, primarily at the Master’s level,” said Heinz Bulmahn, Dean of the Graduate College. “We see a greater demand for education graduate studies.

“At the graduate level [the increase] is always related to the number of faculty we have to provide the services, Bulmahn said. “We have to maintain a certain level of academic quality, so you cannot automatically say, ‘we will have hundreds of new graduate students,’ without considering whether we have enough resources.”

According to Bulmahn, the University hopes to continue to increase graduate student enrollment.

“Optimum proportion within the University should be 15 percent of graduate and 85 undergraduate students,” he said.