The branch campus is seeing more graduate students this year, he said. Undergraduate enrollment is down slightly, but the number of graduate students has increased from 187 full-time equivalents to 206. The branch campus has hired additional faculty for its education and business programs, and it's added a master's degree in technology management. Other new programs include a field-based principal certificate program and a bachelor of arts in computer science. Enrollment is up in graduate programs in business, in undergraduate and graduate education programs and in nursing, James said.
Enrollment also is up slightly in science programs.
However, engineering enrollment is continuing to decline, he said. There seems to be a shift in interest among some Hanford employees from taking engineering classes to taking business classes, James said. Enrollment in liberal arts also is down. Statewide, enrollment trends for all WSU students at the Pullman campus and branch campuses decreased slightly, and students signed up for lighter class loads. However, the incoming freshman class, while somewhat smaller than last year's record enrollment of 2,978, is the fourth-largest incoming class in the past 12 years, with 2,487 students.