EMU enrollment surges 4.2 percent; average GPA of incoming students also up

Eastern Michigan University's overall enrollment has surged 4.26 percent for the 2009-10 school year. As of Sept. 22, 22,859 students are enrolled for fall 2009 compared to 21,926 at the same time last year, an increase of 933 students. Enrollment is up at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

ENROLLMENT SURGES: Students walk to class during the first day of school at Eastern Michigan University Sept. 9. As of Sept. 22, EMU has 22,859 students enrolled for fall 2009. The bump represents a 4.2 percent increase over fall 2008.

"We are extremely pleased with the increase in enrollment," said EMU President Susan Martin. "We've worked very hard to keep Eastern affordable while maintaining and improving the quality of our programs. Our tuition increase was the lowest among Michigan's 15 public universities, only $10 more a credit hour, or 3.8 percent."

Final reports for fall 2009 indicate that 4,683 new undergraduate students are enrolled for fall 2009 compared to 4,198 at the same time last year, an 11.55 percent increase. As of Sept. 19, the total undergraduate count is 17,752 compared to 17,206 in fall 2008, a 3.17 percent increase.

There are 1,450 new graduate students enrolled, compared to 1,239 the previous year for a total graduate count of 5,107 for fall 2009. Last year, there were 4,720 graduate students enrolled. This represents an 8.2 percent increase over 2008.

In addition, the average grade point average of incoming freshmen is 3.08 this fall, compared to 3.04 last year. More than 55 percent of EMU's incoming freshmen have GPAs above 3.0. This is up 50 percent from 2008.

More on this story...