CSUN Reports Rise in Spring Enrollment

Student enrollment is “slowly, but surely” creeping back up at the quake-damaged Cal State Northridge campus, which posted a 2% increase for the 1998 spring semester over the same period last year, school officials said.

While the numbers are only slightly above the enrollment lows of the early 1980s, they are increasing.

“Students are slowly regaining confidence in the stability of the university,” said Mayrene Barker, a CSUN spokeswoman.

CSUN experienced a few good years of enrollment--with a high of 30,063 in the spring 1990-91 semester--before the Northridge earthquake hit the campus in January 1994.

Enrollment dropped sharply--to 23,641--in the spring semester after the quake, lower than it had been since about 1984, officials said.

CSUN’s official 1998 spring census taken last month showed that enrollment was up by 528 students over the same period last year.

Officials said the university saw a similar increase in fall 1997 from the same time in 1996, when it rose about 1.7%.

Moreover, the university’s full-time equivalent student tally this semester was up 2.6% to 19,085, exceeding the administration’s target for the semester by nearly 60 students.