Painter Stone
Staff Writer
The University of Wyoming has seen a decrease in enrollment numbers as of late. The number of total UW students for the fall of 2018-2019 is less than thirteen thousand students. This is the first time that this has happened since the 2007-2008 fall semester.
The fall of 2018-2019 saw a total of 12,462 students enrolled, according to the university’s statistics. For the past decade UW has consistently been over 13,000 students during the fall semester.
In comparison to the fall semester, the University often sees a drop of several hundred students in the spring semester. If the University of Wyoming continues to see this kind of drop, then there may even less students attending UW at the beginning of next semester.
However, this years’ freshman class is officially the second largest freshman class in the history of the University of Wyoming. This year’s freshman class is the second largest in UW history, with 1,760 college freshman attending classes this fall. The largest freshman class was last year with 1,849 freshmen. Last year was also the largest amount of graduates in UW history, with 3,032 students earning their degrees, which is the first time in UW history that the number was over 3,000 graduates.
“It was the cheapest [option] and was still a [state] university, and was not too far away from [my] mommy,” Wyoming Freshman Jerimiah Taylor said. “I don’t think people want to come to Wyoming, It’s cold. I’m not really sure what else would stop people from coming here. Not offering the major they want maybe?”
“One of the reasons there has been a decrease is that we graduated the largest class ever the last academic year, there were 3,031 total degrees that were given out; and that was the all-time record and when you graduate more students, they’re no longer enrolled, and that has an impact on the overall enrollment,” UW’s head of public relations Chad Baldwin said. “The number of First time students this semester 1,760 , that’s up 12% from the fall of 2014. But it is down from last year (1,849). ”
