Enrollment record falls again at Fort Hays

By JOSEPH GALANTE

Hays Daily News

It came as no surprise when Fort Hays State University announced it had set a new enrollment record again this year. For the past three years, the story has been the same every semester.

Since 2001, FHSU has grown at an unprecedented rate — far surpassing other four-year Kansas universities. This growth came at a time when most other schools in the state were fighting to retain students.

The university has grown to more than 8,000 student, a growth of 4,000 students since FHSU President Edward H. Hammond arrived at FHSU in 1987.

But enrollment in the spring 2005 semester leveled off, increasing by just 0.1 percent from last year. Officials said the numbers indicate the end of the university's explosive growth.

“We had a trend for about the last four years of really large increases in our enrollment,” said Kent Steward, spokesman for FHSU. “There's no question it's a bit of a reversal of this trend. And we anticipated that. We're almost happy to see an increase even if it's extremely small like it is this semester.”

In the past few years, universities have faced reduced funding from the state and declining enrollment. As state universities raised tuition rates to deal with the lack of funding, FHSU went against the flow.

As tuition prices rose, FHSU — known for having the cheapest tuition in the state — promoted its “affordable success” motto.

“The thinking was if we held tuition much lower than others are holding it, then we'll have an infusion of dollars because of the increasing number of students,” Steward said.

“And it was kind of a bold venture because no one else approached it that way.”

The strategy worked.

In 2002, FHSU enrollment expanded by 14 percent, in 2003 enrollment had grown by another 15 percent and had topped 8,000 for the first time in its 100-plus years of existence.

In the fall 2004 semester, it grew by another 15 percent.

“Numbers are not the end-all and be-all of what we're doing,” Steward said. “But by keeping or enrollment up, we're able to have a lot of majors students can chose from and resources available that just wouldn't exist if we were a university half the size that we are.”

The largest driving force behind FHSU's growth has been the Virtual College, which expanded by 42 percent to 4,200 students this year.

The Virtual College offers Internet courses taught by FHSU instructors to students all over the world. FHSU's four international partner universities have driven enrollment in the Virtual College way up. Nearly half of the Virtual College's students are international students.

But this year the university is catching its breath from growing. To ensure the quality of its curriculum hasn't suffered during the rapid growth, the university is reigning back on recruitment efforts and focusing on internal quality.

“We just wanted to make sure we had quality because we've grown so much in the past two years,” Hammond said. “It isn't that we were concerned about it, we just wanted to make sure.”

In the past three years, FHSU has averaged a 7-percent increase in tuition — the lowest increases in the state.

Hammond said he expects the growth to continue over the next few years as the university approaches its goal of 5,000 on-campus students and 5,000 Virtual College students.

“If you look at that, we're getting close to our five and five goal,” Hammond said. “We're going to have to hire some more faculty and get ready for next year.”

Reporter Joseph Galante can be reached at (785) 628-1081, ext. 139, or by e-mail at

jgalante@dailynews.net.