LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —
With the new school year underway and thousands of students enrolled at colleges in central Arkansas, some universities are reporting record enrollment numbers.
"It's been a really exciting last couple of weeks on campus," UA-Little Rock Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships Jonathan Coleman said.
UA-Little Rock saw its most significant enrollment increase in 15 years, welcoming more first-year and transfer students this fall.
"Our new freshman enrollment is up... 29% to be exact," Coleman said. "Our new transfer enrollment is up 18% overall. Undergraduate and graduate enrollment is up almost 4%."
Coleman attributes some of the enrollment growth to new scholarships.
"We've seen over the last few years that the most important thing to students is affordability," Coleman said.
That's why the university created the Trojan Guarantee Scholarship, which offers free tuition to Arkansas students who are eligible for the Pell Grant and Academic Challenge Scholarship.
"We have almost 500 students that have received funding," Coleman said.
Coleman also said they've stepped up retention efforts too.
"I think also we're doing a better job of talking about services that are on campus for students if they're worried about their ability to perform academically," Coleman said.
UA-Little Rock is just one of several colleges seeing significant growth.
The University of Central Arkansas saw a record 26% enrollment growth for its incoming class.
"All of that adds up to a lot of new energy, a lot of new faces on campus," UCA President Houston Davis said. "It's been a great fall so far, and we're looking forward to a great academic year."
Like UA-Little Rock, UCA has a similar debt-free degree program called UCA Commitment.
Davis said that partly contributed to the enrollment increase. He also said bigger graduating high school classes had something to do with it.
"765 of those, almost 2,200 freshmen, are benefiting from UCA commitment, but a lot of others came here for other reasons, and we're excited about that," Davis said.
Enrollment at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, Arkansas State, Arkansas Tech, Harding, Central Baptist and Pulaski Tech also increased this fall semester.