Headline: Fall semester in numbers

Subhead: GV sees increase in enrollment, marketing and nursing majors

By: Emily Doran

[email protected]

Numerically, the fall 2016 semester has been one of growth in many ways for Grand Valley State University.

“This fall was a record in terms of the number of new freshmen and the ethnic diversity of the new freshmen,” said Philip Batty, director of institutional analysis at GVSU. “It was also a record in terms of total enrollment, the biggest total student body ever. (Those increases) are noteworthy. (They) are things that we’re legitimately proud of.”

This semester, there are 25,460 students enrolled at GVSU, up from last year’s total of 25,325 students. Of this semester’s total number, there are 22,209 undergraduate students consisting of 4,816 freshmen, 4,965 sophomores, 5,283 juniors and 7,145 seniors. The freshman class has shown the greatest recent growth of these four groupings, increasing its membership count from last fall’s total of 4,568 students. Only the sophomore class has decreased in size, dropping from 5,122 students last fall.

Other trends include the growth of certain undergraduate programs, including marketing and nursing, which Batty said “have had the most noteworthy growth this year.” Currently, there are 958 students who have declared marketing as their major, up from 815 students in the fall of 2015.

Nursing has shown similar growth. There are 1,519 declared nursing majors this semester, an increase from last fall’s count of 1,392.

“Both of those programs require secondary admission, and the numbers shown reflect the number who have declared the major, not the ones who have been fully admitted to the programs,” Batty said via email. “In general, most of the undergraduate majors in the Seidman College of Business had strong growth this year.”