There are nearly 5,000 more college students in the state than there were last year according to new data from Utah’s System of Higher Education. So far that hasn’t caused too many headaches for Utah’s largest school, Utah Valley University.
The universities seeing the biggest growth are Dixie State in St. George and Utah Valley University in Utah County. Both had around a 7 percent increase. For UVU, that’s 2,000 additional students.
“We’ve got lots of new students and we already had lots of students, UVU president says Matt Holland.
UVU is the state's largest school by enrollment and Holland says of the new students, a little more than half are coming from nearby counties. The other half come from all over the state, quite a few from California and some international.
“We’re handling it fine, there are no crisis on campus, we’re providing classes. There’s actually parking despite what some people may want to claim about that," says Holland.
He says students will probably always complain about parking.
Meanwhile other schools aren’t growing. While the number of full-time students at Utah State in Logan and Salt Lake Community College saw a small increase, overall enrollment is down by the hundreds on both campuses.
