Texas A&M set a record high for enrollment this spring semester with a total of 64,961 students, as reported on by the Division of Enrollment & Academic Services on the 20th class day.
This enrollment encompasses the main campus and Health Center in College Station, as well as the Galveston and Doha, Qatar campuses. The figure includes undergraduate, masters, doctoral and professional degree students. In College Station alone, 59,837 students were reported, marking an additional record for the flagship campus.
The growing number of students in College Station poses both pros and cons for the community. Phoebe Latham, environmental design sophomore, said though she likes the opportunities that come with an increasing population on campus, it comes at the expense of a more crowded campus with longer lines for food and more traffic around town.
“The more [students] you have, the less space you have in dorms, and you have to expand more, and that’s going to cost a lot of money,” Latham said. “But, A&M is all about tradition, so the more people that come here, then the more opportunity there is for us to expand the Aggie family.”
Hannah Pierdolla, psychology sophomore, said she has trouble finding parking on the growing campus, and the Aggie Spirit buses are often overcrowded, forcing students to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.
The university is in the process of remedying this parking issue with the construction of a new parking garage along Polo Road across from Century Square.
Despite the current parking problems, Pierdolla said she is in favor of admitting and enrolling more students.
“There’s more people to meet from different backgrounds and different cultures, so that’s always good,” Pierdolla said. “I like meeting new people, and it’s good to have more Aggies out there in the world … to expand the Aggie Network.”
Higher enrollment also poses a problem for class registration time, Latham said. With more and more students enrolled, it makes registration time more competitive for students to get into the classes they need, and it pushes students’ registration times further back on the calendar.
“You have more people getting into honors, which means more people in earlier registration,” Latham said. “That means less opportunities for some people to get classes because there are so many people on each half — honors and non-honors — and it slows everything down. I think we need to have a cap.”