UTC dean of students addresses growing college enrollment

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — The Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) recently released that over 200,000 students were enrolled in college campuses across the state.

The University of Tennessee system experienced the largest gains in enrollment, increasing close to 5% since last fall.

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga addressed their campus’s growing enrollment and what they hope to achieve.

“When you have a lot of students and an increase in enrollment, it’s really positive for the overall culture and climate of the institutions. We are really excited about what that means for us going forward,” Dean of students Jim Hicks said.

Not only have numbers increased, but the dean says that students have been more engaged this year. 

“Face-to-face education is really important. The environment in which you learn is really important. So, they’re here and enjoying themselves at UTC,” Hicks said.

Hicks said that coming out of COVID-19 has played a role in this engagement. 

Current college freshmen were freshmen in high school during quarantine in 2020.

With an increase of around 4500 more students enrolled in 2023 than 2022, THEC shared that colleges are investing in the importance of higher education.

This record has the university looking forward to future engagement and growth.

“One of the things we’re really excited about is our homecoming week is next week. We expect large numbers of students to come out to all of our activities and high engagement numbers for our football game next week. We are having ‘Mocs Give Day’ which is a great opportunity for our students and for our alums and friends to give back to the institutions in many ways. We had a record involvement in that last year and we’re looking to increase that this year,” Hicks said.

With ‘Mocs Give Day’ on Tuesday, Oct. 3, donations will provide additional funding to a lot of the programs at the university.

Hicks said that the university looks forward to providing educational opportunities and what they can do for added programming. 

“We’re really excited about it. I think it bodes well for UTC and for higher education in Tennessee,” Hicks added.