Miami University's regional campuses are not only defending themselves against the current recession but are actually thriving with both campuses seeing a significant increase in enrollment for the 2009-10 school year.
According to Stacey Adams-Perry, director of admission at Miami Middletown, the spike in enrollment is not surprising considering enrollment has been gradually trending upward throughout the last four years but said there has been more of an increase for this upcoming year.
Adams-Perry partially credited the increase to the current economical issues.
"More people are getting laid off and decide to go back to school for re-training," Adams-Perry said. "Once the economy is restored these students may go back to work."
Perry Richardson, Hamilton campus communication officer, reiterated Adams-Perry's statement.
"The economy is definitely a contributing factor, although enrollment had been going up years before these issues," Richardson said.
According to Richardson, one of the primary appeals of Miami's regional campuses is the flexible scheduling that attracts many non-traditional college students who work full time or are responsible for their families.
"We offer more programs with flexible schedules such as hybrid in-class and online courses, as well as night and weekend courses that attract the non-traditional students," Richardson said. "Although we also have our fair share of students who are have just graduated from high school."
Miami senior Jen Gault has attended courses on the Middletown campus for the past two years and said she has noticed the changing demographics of courses there.
"I've definitely noticed that there are more non-traditional students in my Middletown class this year than last year," Gault said.
As for the numerical aspect of the enrollment increase, Adams-Perry said the number of new and transfer students at Miami Middletown has gone up 15.8 percent. This figure does not include the Oxford students who attend classes at Middletown's campus.
According to Richardson, the Hamilton campus currently has 4,460 students, an unprecedented figure considering the 755 student increase from last year.
The issue of accommodating all of the new students is not a primary concern for either Adams-Perry or Richardson.
"We recently had a study done that ended up revealing that we can handle up to 5,000 students," Richardson said. "We would probably need more faculty office space before we would need more classrooms."
Adams-Perry agrees.
"We hope for the issue of having too many students," Adams-Perry said. "That's a great issue to have."
