Hordes of students crowding Hepner Hall, lively conversation populating the student union, sorority sisters and roommates shuffling bleary-eyed to and from their classes all are images that come to mind when picturing the students of SDSU. But these carefree crowds have led many to question – how many students are too many?
SDSU admitted over 6,600 first-year students this fall, a record-breaking number for the university. Enrollment numbers have broken their own records year after year, which continues to be a cause for celebration within school administration.
Enrollment records indicate that these numbers have been steadily creeping upwards since the 2016-2017 academic year, with an increase of almost 10,000 students to the overall student body within the past decade. From 2016 to 2020, the student population consistently hovered around 37,000 to 39,000 students.
Since the 2021-2022 academic year, however, enrollment increases have accelerated, going up by an average of 1,500 new students per year. Considering that these numbers only used to fluctuate by a few hundred each year, this is quite a significant rate of growth.
In the wake of campus changes such as the construction of new dorms, some students and faculty have started to feel the strain of so many students striving for success within one institution.
Heather Canary, director of SDSU’s School of Communication, said that she is concerned with the lack of resources for her more-than1,000 students. She said that the large influx of students — many of them community college transfers — has been somewhat manageable within her program, but the struggle is still there.
“The university has tried to be creative in finding ways to serve so many new students, especially with our Global Campus program,” Canary said. “But I would love to see the Chancellor’s Office give us the resources that our department deserves, especially considering our high enrollment numbers.”
Running out of space
Specifically, Canary mentioned one thing that students and faculty often take for granted: classrooms.
And she’s not alone in her concern and desire for more allotted space.
Temple Northup, director of SDSU’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, shared many of the same worries about academic spaces.
“SDSU needs more classrooms as a whole,” Northup said. “We’re being forced to use conference rooms as classroom spaces, which is not enough space for a whole class of students and takes away from school staff who need to work in those rooms.”
Northup said that if more classrooms are needed for his program, he must request them from administration. These requests can often take time to process, however, and are not guaranteed.
“Every classroom on campus is at full capacity from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., those are the peak hours,” Temple said. “We’ve been forced to try and add classes around that time, so that there’s hopefully more classrooms available.”
He suggested that other spaces could be reutilized, including group working spaces in dorm buildings that could serve smaller classes.
Outnumbered by students
Northup also said that many programs are suffering from a distinct lack of advising staff, allegedly due to hiring stagnation on an administrative level.
SDSU hired 20 new advisors across the entire university as of 2021 – in a recent statement, SDSU also said that all first and second-year students are assigned a Coordinated Care Advisor to guide them through early degree planning and resource navigation.
However, the JMS program currently only has one advisor for its 724 students.
“SDSU enrollment numbers have steadily increased over the years, but there’s been no correlating increase in advising staff,” Northup said.
Competition for classes
Kristen Waterford, a fourth-year computer science major, shared her concerns over class and section availability.
“Classes that I need for my major don’t always have multiple sections — this makes it difficult to fit into my schedule with work and getting to class on time,” she said. “You have to wait until the next semester, if they even have that class available, since certain classes are only available in the fall or spring.”
Second-year biochemistry major Natalia Grace also touched on issues surrounding parking availability, with such a high volume of new students each year.
“I’ve never struggled so hard to find parking in past semesters,” she said, “and it doesn’t help that they’re closing down several of the biggest lots.”
A continuing trend?
The university said that enrollment goals change yearly and are dependent on state funding.
“The CSU system has also reallocated funding internally, moving some funding from campuses that were enrolling students far below their targets to campuses that were meeting or exceeding their targets,” a spokesperson for the university said in a statement.
To accommodate a growing population of students, the university has started construction of new dorms and has added new major programs. Amid all these changes, students and staff are still left wondering if their campus needs will be met and how tightly they will be squeezed together as the years go by and enrollment numbers rise.
