NT enrollment expected to exceed 29,000,Blurb from

OldTimer · August 26, 2002

At UNT, officials are preparing for more than 29,000 students, which would be a record. Last fall, about 27,900 students enrolled at UNT.

Dr. Bonita Jacobs, vice president for student development, said officials estimate that the number of new freshmen will increase by about 3 percent, an increase that has left the housing department in its perennial crunch.

"We have a very large housing shortage," Dr. Jacobs said. "This has been a concern for us as well as for our new students and their parents." She said the housing department works with students as much as it can to help them find housing. When the dorms are full, students are referred either to the University Courtyard apartments or to many other places that have available housing.

"We are as creative as we can be in helping them find housing," Dr. Jacobs said.

DeepGreen · August 26, 2002

So why doesn't the state of Texas appropriate funds to UNT so that 4 or 5 more dorms can be built?

UNTFan23 · August 26, 2002

That's close to 4% increase in enrollment.

Additional funds would be nice to build something like 3 - 5 Maple Hall like residence halls

OldTimer · August 27, 2002

Funding for higher education is based on prior enrollment...established every two years. That means if 1,000 more students show up in a base year...per student funding does not come until the start of the following biannual year.

I don't believe the "State" funds dorms...academic buildings yes, dorms, no. Most dorms are auxiliary funded ..... revenue bonds paid out of rent received which also has to cover operating costs.

Reb UT '70 · August 27, 2002

Looking at the North Texas long term future, I think that dorm rooms should be a very high priority. Housing is just not very available in Denton, and the more students live in Denton the better the whole 'college' atmosphere will be. If the University were to build additional large dorms to house an additional 5000-7000 students it would change the campus in a million ways. Not least the 'commuter' school tag would be impossible to hang when you have over 10,000 living in dorms. You would also have a huge impact on Denton and Fry street.

I see a chicken and egg process in Denton, the kids don't stay on campus during the weekend and so you don't have an area that caters to large numbers of students thus the students don't stay on campus. I was pleased to see a new dance place near the campus, but when a favorite eating place is closed at 9:00 on a Friday night it sends the wrong message to the students.

I wanted to add that they need to be smart about the dorm rooms as well. The newest dorms are very nice but also expensive. I don't know much about the older dorms, except Clark, and Kerr. Those dorm rooms are much too small for the current student. These kids bring a lot more to school than I did, and the rooms need to be larger. Maybe it's just that girls bring more... No, they all seem to have microwaves, and TV's and the computers that take up so much space.

PlummMeanGreen · August 27, 2002

Don't think we'll see in our lifetime the state of Texas pay for more dorms; but UNT has had private investors for the last 2 (Santa Fe and Mozart Square) and that seems to be a pretty fair arrangement for all parties concerned. The only negative to privately built dorms is they never seem to include a cafeteria.

Anyone heard of other privately funded dorms for UNT's future?

mhow2 · August 28, 2002

Does this make us #3 in size?

PlummMeanGreen · August 28, 2002

Uh, we will still need 2 or 3K to pass UHouston who I think sets around 32 or 33,000 last time I checked (unless their main campus has lost enrollment since they have so many satellite schools down there now).

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has projected UNT's enrollment to be around 42,000 at the Denton campus in the next 10 years; hence a main reason present administrators are furiously shuffling around trying to prepare our alma mater and Denton for this growth. UNT President Dr. Norval Pohl in his own projections has us reaching around 45,000 plus. Any UNT enrollment in the 40's range will make us #3 with room to spare IMHO.

I don't see Texas Tech ever being able to pass UNT in enrollment and that is (still) because of Lubbock's west Texas outpost location and not being in a "growing" urban center such as UNT. I still say UNT's growth will be our greatest endowment (and ally) until our school's financial endowment catches up with where it should befitting a school with our scope and size. The new engineering program will indirectly help us not only in fundraising but in gaining (dramatically) more research dollars for UNT's main campus.

Like Gray (Jack Fincher) Eagle said, though, UNT is in the infant stages of endowment fundraising since we didn't officially start that until the early 1970's (if one could ever believe that). Our past "teacher' college" administrators were said to have told North Texas Exes almost up till the early 1970's to keep their money as their supposed philosophy was "if the alums send us their money they will want to start running the university." (We all know, though, what those older NT administrators said does, in fact, have some truth to their philosophy).