Texas Tech University tallied a new enrollment record with 38,246 students for the fall semester. Meanwhile, Tech's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources continued its record-setting student enrollment pace, with 2,497 students signing up for classes in the fall semester. That includes 2,075 undergraduates and 422 graduate students; an increase of 194 students over last year's CASNR numbers.

"Research over the last several years shows that jobs available in the agricultural, food and natural resource sectors outpace the number of college graduates," said CASNR Dean William Brown. "Incoming CASNR students see the high level of involvement from CASNR faculty in their education, excellent availability of scholarships and many opportunities to gain experience outside of the classroom which prepares them to become leaders in the industries we serve."

Tech's Department of Animal and Food Sciences once again led the jump in student numbers, moving from 767 to 908 students, an increase of 16 percent. "Our enrollment was up over 130 undergraduate students, mostly in various animal science programs as opposed to food science or graduate student numbers," said Michael Orth, chairman of the Department of Animal and Food Sciences "Over the last 11 years we have been averaging about 14 percent growth per year."

CASNR's positive numbers are a direct result of the momentum of faculty, staff and members of the Dr. Bill Bennett Student Success Center who are creating new opportunities for students, added Cindy Akers, CASNR's Associate Dean for Academic and Student Programs.

The 2018 Fall enrollment numbers for individual CASNR departments are:

• Department of Agricultural & Applied Economics: 522 (Grad: 69/Undergrad: 453)
• Department of Agricultural Education & Communications: 335 (Grad: 91 /Undergrad: 244)
• Animal & Food Sciences: 908 (Grad: 87/Undergrad: 821)
• Department of Landscape Architecture: 91 (Grad: 8/Undergrad: 83)
• Natural Resources Management: 374 (Grad: 55 /Undergrad: 319)
• Department of Plant & Soil Science: 267 (Grad: 112 /Undergrad: 155)

CASNR officials point out that part of the enrollment growth can be attributed to distance education students. After the first week of the Fall 2018 semester, CASNR had a little over 440 student enrollments in 32 online courses. Karissa Greathouse, CASNR's Distance Education Instructional Technologist, said a further breakdown indicates that the Plant and Soil Science and Agricultural Education and Communications Departments are still the heavy hitters with over 90 percent of the CASNR Fall 2018 online courses coming from those two departments.

Separately, Tech's enrollment rise of 1,236 students to 38,246 represents a 3.3 percent increase in enrollment this fall compared to last fall. The new numbers also revealed new records in overall enrollment, freshman class enrollment, National Merit Finalists, Presidential Scholarship recipients and first- and second-year student retention rates.

"We're going to grow, but we're going to do it with quality," said Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec. "We're not growing for the sake of growth. I think we're getting close to our freshmen capacity. Where we do want to focus in the future is on graduate enrollment. It was up ever-so-slightly this year - still not what it was two years ago. So that is a concern, and we'll be putting a lot of effort into that in the coming year."

CONTACT: William Brown, Dean, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2808 or william.f.brown@ttu.edu

1011NM18 / For more information on Texas Tech University's 2018 fall enrollment numbers, click here