Lilly Casolaro
News Editor
Last year was a record-breaking year for enrollment on Troy University’s main campus.
“The goal for enrollment on the Troy campus is 10,000 (students), which will require careful planning of facilities and programs,” said Clif Lusk, coordinator for university relations.
According to a post on the University Facebook page, there are nearly 2,400 incoming students — the largest class in the history of Troy’s main campus.
At an Aug. 17 event on Bibb Graves Quad, Buddy Starling, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management, said there were approximately 2,300 incoming students on Troy’s main campus last fall.
“We expect that our incoming freshman numbers will be slightly ahead of last year, which was a record-breaking year,” Starling said.
In the finance committee meeting held on April 20, the Board of Trustees announced the Troy campus has experienced a 9 percent growth from last spring.
Lusk said tentative enrollment numbers for 2016 have been released but are not final.
“The total number of students on the Troy campus currently is 7,864,” Lusk said. This number is up from 7,366 reported last year.
Starling attributes the growth on the Troy campus to a combination of several factors.
“You can point to a number of things,” Starling said. “Effective recruiting, effective marking, the relationship that exists between recruiting and marketing, the efforts of our faculty, the presence of administrators at key events, and most importantly, our students telling other students about their experiences at Troy.
“We depend on the influx of international students to create the numbers necessary to run our university and produce the services that we have on the university campuses.”
Darlene Schmurr-Stewart, dean of international student services, said that there are 450 new international students enrolled across all four of the university’s Alabama campuses.
“Most international students do not have transfer credit,” Schmurr-Stewart said. “Undergraduate students are required to register for a minimum of 12 credit hours and stay approximately four years (at Troy). Graduate students must have a minimum of nine credit hours and stay approximately two years.”
Associate Director of Enrollment Management Dendy Moseley said there are 425 incoming transfer students.
The top three feeder institutions for Troy are Wallace Community College in Dothan, Enterprise State Community College and Lurleen B. Wallace Community College in Andalusia.
Transfer students, international students and all students enrolled within the state of Alabama are included in the count for determining state appropriations — money that universities receive from the state based on instructional costs, maintenance and upkeep of the university.
According to the Alabama Department of Finance website, “revenues credited to the ETF (Educational Trust Fund) are used for the support, maintenance and development of public education in Alabama, debt service and capital improvements relating to educational facilities, and other functions related to educating the state’s citizens.”
Richard Sizelove, a junior math major from Indianapolis and SGA’s chief of staff, said that state appropriations are given based on total enrollment.
“What we get from the state is about one-fourth of our total revenue as far as tuition plus state appropriations,” Sizelove said.
In a July presentation, Jim Bookout, senior vice chancellor for finance and business affairs, said $5,055 is given by the state per student for full-time enrollment, based on the fall 2015 enrollment of 9,754.
For students enrolled full time in the online or global campuses, $3,409 is given by the state per student.
According to the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, Alabama residents paid $9,880 in tuition and required fees for the 2015-2016 academic year; nonresidents paid $18,490.
“Our tuition and fees that we pay as students is about three times what we get from the state,” Sizelove said.
