In a public statement re- leased by Harding University, student enrollment for fall 2011 year reached 7,155, and is a 5.1 percent increase from the fall 2010 enrollment of 6,810 students. Of those students for the fall 2011 year, 1,018 of them are freshmen.
“This year’s enrollment represents a healthy growth for us,”President David Burks said. “The across the board growth is a reflection of not only the caliber of the Uni- versity’s academic offerings, but also an indication of the affordability of the Harding experience.”
To accommodate the surge of freshmen and an increased demand for on-campus liv- ing, Harding made several temporary exemptions to the housing rules during the spring and summer.
“No official changes have been made to the housing rules,” David Collins, vice president
and dean of students, said. “But to accommodate new students, some exceptions were made.”
Additionally, Harding is experiencing higher retention rates of students, meaning that more students are returning year after year. The third con- tributing element to increased demand for on-campus housing, which every university in the country is seeing, is that more students who are qualified to live off-campus are choosing to remain in on-campus hous- ing, Collins said.
The cost of living on-campus is competitive to off-campus options, and many students choose to live on campus because there are not enough apartments close to campus, Patty Barrett, director of residence life, said.
Collins said they do not know how many students live off-campus as a result of the temporary exception, but he estimated between 50 to 100 students who normally would not be eligible are now living off-campus.
In addition to the traditional residence halls, Harding has placed students in alternative housing, moving students into West Apartments, Oak Cottage, the University House and even Harding Place.
The use of Oak Cottage and Harding Place is a new development; the other spaces have been used previously. Nine men are living at Oak Cottage on Market Street, which is similar to a University House for men. Harding owns the house, and the men who live there have a curfew and a Resident Assistant. Harding Place serves as housing to 27 women who also have an RA and curfew.
“As we consider what we need to do to alleviate our overcrowding right now, we see that there are tremendous benefits to building apartments here on campus for our students to rent,” Collins said. “At this point in time, we don’t want to build a residence hall; we want to build more apartments.”
Collins said Harding will assess the number of residence halls through the fall semester and make future housing decisions based on that information.
