By Joseph Barrios
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The new numbers are in Ä the UA has just a few dozen more students on campus now then it did last year.
The total number of students enrolled at the University of Arizona stands at 35,306 for the 1994-95, up from last year's total enrollment of 35,279. The number of new freshman decreased from 4,529 in fall 1993 to 4,481 this year.
UA administrators held a press conference yesterday afternoon at McClelland Hall to release the information.
The total number of students on campus is in stride with the university's ballpark enrollment cap of 35,000, said Jerry Lucido, assistant vice president of enrollment services.
While total enrollment rose only slightly, minority enrollment climbed by several hundred students.
About every one in five students on campus is classified as an ethnic minority. There are 7,334 minority students enrolled at the UA this year, a 7.4 percent increase from 6,831 students last year.
"I think that signals the commitment we have at the university at keeping this as diverse a population as we can," said Saundra Lawson Taylor, vice president of student affairs.
Taylor said minority numbers have increased over the past 10 years because of increased retention and recruitment programs, like the UA's student minority centers and high school recruitment programs like APEX, which targets minority students in high school and offers tutoring and counseling.
The 1993 elimination of the Office of Minority Student Affairs has not had much effect on the resources available to minority students, Taylor said. She said that the effort to retain minorities was not hurt by the department's elimination because faculty and students on campus are contributing to helping minority students.
"We don't have quite the gap students thought we would have," Taylor said.
Minority graduate numbers increased, with 799 graduating in 1993-94, an increase from 710 in 1992-93.
And the students who entered the university this year are of higher quality, Lucido said. Honor student numbers increased from 502 students last year to 604 students this year, he said, and the average high school GPA for entering freshman increased from 3.2 in 1993 to 3.25 this fall.