UNIVERSITY MAY LIMIT FRESHMAN ENROLLMENT

Southeast Missouri State University may limit freshman enrollment for the fall semester because of a classroom crunch and shortage of student housing.

University officials say the school could run out of class space and residence hall rooms this fall if the number of new freshmen continues to rise.

But Dr. Pauline Fox, vice president of administration and enrollment management, said the university won't cut off freshman enrollment without warning.

Fox said the university might have to set a limit on applications from freshmen who would live in campus residence halls.

Freshmen who live 50 miles or farther from the Cape Girardeau school are required to live on campus.

Southeast has reserved 1,200 beds for new students, including freshmen, transfer and international students. The rest of the housing would go to returning students. Southeast expects to house nearly 2,500 students on campus this fall.

Fox said Friday that university officials are considering setting a limit on how many new freshman housing contracts they will accept. If that happens, Southeast would set a cut-off date for accepting freshman applications. The university, she said, would publicly announce the deadline if one is set.

If that happens, the university would encourage students who didn't make the enrollment cut-off to apply for admission for the spring 2002 semester. More students typically are enrolled for fall semesters than spring semesters.

The number of entering freshmen at Southeast has grown steadily in recent years.

Fox said as many as 1,600 freshmen could be entering Southeast this fall, up from 1,500 last year. At that level, Southeast would have about 400 more beginning freshmen than it did in the 1997 fall semester. The number of freshmen includes both commuting students and those who would live on campus.

"We have to make sure we have appropriate class space for entering freshmen," she said.

Admissions director Jay Goff said the university's freshman courses could be filled to capacity. "We will always continue to admit and enroll students until the classes are completely full," he said.

Goff said some students could take classes in the university's outlying higher-education centers in Sikeston, Malden and Perryville, Mo. That could lessen the strain on classes on the main campus, he said.

Goff said the university doesn't have large lecture rooms like some schools. "Since we don't use lecture halls, we can't just add 30 seats to a class," he said.

Southeast could have more than 9,000 graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in classes this fall. The university's goal is to reach an enrollment of 10,000 students within the next several years.