Kaylee Cummings and Meghan Miskovic paused Thursday as they were about to enter Bishop Hall at SUNY Cortland. Sure, they’d heard the college had enrolled its largest freshman class – ever. They didn’t have a ready explanation.
“It’s kind of the cheapest option,” said Cummings, a freshman social studies education major from Ronkonkoma. “And it’s good for education.”
“Cost-effective,” added Miskovic, a freshman community health major from Orange County. “But it also checked off all my boxes: size, distance from home. And it has a dance club and I wanted to do that.”
Whatever the reason, after two years of schooling marred by the coronavirus pandemic, SUNY Cortland is experiencing a record-breaking fall semester.
“We've had a pretty historic freshman class. It's the biggest class we've had in 33 years,” said Frederic Pierce, SUNY Cortland’s director of communications. And maybe longer. “That's as far as records go back.”
Combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment is up nearly 200 students from last year. “Last year we had 6,658. This year was about 6,800. At this time of year, the numbers are a little fluid,” Pierce said. Some students leave and others arrive late, so the numbers regularly change. He expects that number to increase, however.
That’s a reversal, of sorts, from national trends. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported last spring that college enrollment dropped last spring to 16.2 million, down 4.7%, or 662,000 students, from the spring semester of 2021. Since the pandemic began, undergraduate enrollment nationwide was down 9.4%, or 1.4 million students.
From a practical standpoint, campus life is more or less business as usual. “We're used to dealing with those kinds of fluctuations. We can adjust,” Pierce said. “Realistically, it's like adding one or two students to a class.”
Geographical constraints mean that while the college has enough parking to accommodate higher enrollment, they may not all be great spots. “Parking is always an issue on every campus. We do have enough parking, but not all of it is convenient,” Pierce said, adding the college offers shuttle buses.
Although the worst of COVID may be behind the school, it remains vigilant. “Because of COVID, we’re not tripling up on residences,” Pierce said. The campus still maintains quarantine and isolation beds, albeit fewer since isolation guidelines have changed. The school also now offers students the ability to isolate at home.
Pierce hopes increased enrollment benefits the Cortland community. “It brings energy to the community,” Pierce said. “I think for local businesses it means more of a small economic boom, especially for those who get a lot of business from students. It hopefully gives us additional opportunities to connect with volunteering and cultural opportunities,” he said.
Above all, the school looks forward to the opportunity a booming freshman class brings. “We're very happy to welcome all these new people into our campus. And we’re thankful for the community for being so welcoming to them,” Pierce said.
Enrollment data from Tompkins Cortland Community College were not available Thursday.
Managing Editor Todd R. McAdam contributed to this report.
