THE UNIVERSITY’s freshmen enrollment for this academic year has declined by 10 percent, records from the Office of the Registrar show.
The University has admitted 12,026 freshmen as of June 20, a 10.28-percent drop from last year’s 13,490.
This year, a total of 42,271 were enrolled in the University, a 7.22-percent cut from last year’s 45,564.
Office for Admissions Director Marie Ann Vargas said the downward adjustment was done on purpose in order to improve the quality of education.
“The target now is quality [education] ,” she said.
"We would like to make sure that the classrooms are not overcrowded so we set certain limits for students per class.”
“Usually we take in around mga 10,000 to 11,000,” Vargas added.
“We have not really tried going beyond 14,000, but we also go (do not go) below 6,000.”
The Faculty of Engineering has the largest decrease of freshman enrollment, with 1,549 freshmen compared with 1,881 last year.
Its total enrollment has also dropped: 6,941 compared with last year’s 7,394. Engineering, however, remains the biggest in UST.
Faculties and colleges with the highest cut in freshmen enrollment are the Faculty of Arts and Letters, with 1,120 compared to last year’s 1,226; Faculty of Pharmacy, with 671 to last year’s 786; and the AMV-College of Accountacy, with 941 to last year’s 1,064.
Other colleges where freshman enrollment decreased are the Colleges of Architecture, Commerce and Business Administration, Education, Nursing, Rehabilitation Sciences, and Tourism and Hospitality Management.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Physical Education and Athletics had the highest increase in freshmen enrollment, with 196 from last year’s 135.
The College of Fine Arts and Design had the highest increase in the total number of enrollment with 2,434 enrollees from last year’s 2,313.
Other colleges and faculties with increased freshman enrollment are the College of Science, Conservatory of Music, Faculty of Civil Law, Medicine, Philosophy, Sacred Theology and Graduate School. Lord Bien G. Lelay
This is a welcome move by everyone I am sure in the Thomasian Community especially that only last semester, there were plenty of complaints regarding alleged overcrowding in certain colleges or faculties of the university namely at the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Faculty of Engineering, and College of Commerce. Teachers agree that in order to make learning more conducive in a classroom, class size should be ideal like 30-40 students per class. At Philippine Science High School for instance, there are only 30 students per class. This is rarely exceeded in my experience working as a teacher at Philscie since 1996. This even becomes more imperative in the tertiary level as the degree of difficulty at higher education necessitates that class sizes should be ideal or else not only are the students affected but also even the teachers. But of course, private schools must remain viable especially since they don’t get any financial support from the government unlike government or public schools hence the pressure to accept more students whose tuition payments allows the school to cover the cost of operation. After all, higher quality faculty and facilities don’t come cheap and the school have to generate funds in order to afford their students the best possible education and adequate facilities and other resources at the very least otherwise these schools risks becoming run of the mill establishments or mere diploma mills which UST is certainly not going to be under any circumstances. I wish UST m alma mater the best as it continues to strive for higher quality even in the face of such massive challenges. I am confident that it can weather all the storms with god’s help.