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I believe that a while back when SMU was buying land everywhere there was talk of doubling the student body to about double what it is now. More in line with USC. Any truth to that?

Or am I confusing the requirement of sophomores to live on campus, which will double the housing needs?

Either or, long term, I would hope it would help attendance. I do not advocate sitting on our hands until then, just curious.

There is a plan to grow it but not double. I think it's by like 25%

good to hear; if a higher percentage of the student body is interested in athletics going forward, we will have this attendance problem solved (hopefully within my lifetime)

no -there are no plans to increase the student body in any meaningful way.

We do double the number of students living on campus when the sophmore housing thing kicks in about 2014. They will break ground on that in the spring. 5 new buildings just east of Doak Walker Plaza.

attendence will surely benefit from sophmores being across the street - plus it helps the rah rah a bit if you make the sophmores live on campus.

gostangs wrote:no -there are no plans to increase the student body in any meaningful way.

We do double the number of students living on campus when the sophmore housing thing kicks in about 2014. They will break ground on that in the spring. 5 new buildings just east of Doak Walker Plaza.

attendence will surely benefit from sophmores being across the street - plus it helps the rah rah a bit if you make the sophmores live on campus.

I definitely remember hearing that they plan on growing the student body once the new housing is done. The logic was that more freshman housing would be available. Was this just a rumor or did they shelve it?

I dont think they have enough demand to bring in 100% increase in the student body even 25% is a little too much to imagine. I think they buy up land and hold it as an investment. With how bad the economy has been, it would be better to take control of hard assets and especially stuff that doesnt depreciate.

Doubling attendance or just increasing it by 25% would mean more than just more adding more dorms. Would mean increasing all facilities appropriately to accommodate, and more professors and support staff. That would be incredibly expensive to preserve the same quality and increase the number of undergraduates. Most buildings are completely maxed out. Just got walk around Clements and see how much is crammed into there. With the new Sophmore housing requirement double attendance would mean housing for 6k at least.

There is only a few schools not cramped, I believe Engineering, Law, Business are the only 3 that dont appear to be maxed out.

there are challenges for sure, but if SMU is not trying to grow that is a real mistake. The pool of qualified students has increased hugely over the past 20 years and will continue to increase. More kids are going to college. More high schools are offering AP classes and of course parents are pushing kids more than ever. Then you have Dallas as one of the highest projected growth cities in the future, and you have a recipe that SMU is idiotic if it is not trying to grow its small enrollment. I don't care if you have to expand across Central Expressway and start to build a graduate and "upperclass" campus over there, you do it. SMU needs a plan for 2000 more undergrads at least. are you really telling me that is not feasible?

by the way, you can't just move a few offices and classes across Central as if its "overflow". You have to create a critical mass over there that is vibrant and feels like part of the school. The East Campus if you will. The new SMU boulevard entrance and library complex is a good connector now. If you aren't growing, you're dying.

Hoop Fan: "If you aren't growing, you're dying."

That's a rule of life itself. Good post Hoop!

More students = more alumni = more $$$ back to the university in donations!!! No brainer!!!

Heard we are buying Richland College

The idea is to keep gettting better, not bigger. We might grow from 6000 to 7000 undergrads but that would be over 10 years. I would like to see it too, but I can tell you it is EXTREMELY difficult to keep our student quality up while increasing class size - and if it is one thing they are determined to do it is get SMU up with the Vanderbilts and Northwesterns of the world.

smupony94 wrote:Heard we are buying Richland College

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