Eastern Michigan University’s incoming 2012-13 freshmen class contains 2,595 students, which is a 21 percent increase from the 2,130 that entered this time last year.
In comparison to last year’s incoming class, there was a 36 percent increase of incoming students with a high school GPA of 3.5 or above, and a 32 percent increase in students entering with a high school GPA of 3.0 to 3.49.
There are also 3,343 students living on campus this year, which is an 11 percent increase from last year and the highest rate since 2006. The students living in the residence halls and campus apartments come from 81 different Michigan counties, 43 states and 79 countries. The number of minority students at EMU has increased 24 percent overall, up from 632 to 892 students.
Possible contributing factors to the enrollment increase may include renovations to the university’s campus and tuition restraint, with EMU averaging a 2.85 tuition increase in the past four years.
The amount of financial aid awarded to students has increased 68
percent, from $21.4 million five years ago to $35.7 million dollars this year.
“When I was growing up, my dream was to live on campus,” freshman and Presidential Scholarship winner Mohammad Siddiqui said. “I had dreamed of living in a community where I was independent … Eastern gave me that chance. If it wasn’t for the scholarship that I was given, I would never have been given the opportunity to live on campus and meet so many different and wonderful people.”
In addition to 18 new faculty members (and an approved 37 searches to hire for next fall), there are many recently renovated buildings. The $90 million dollar Science Complex renovations, funded by EMU, are now complete. The renovations included work to the existing classroom building as well as the construction of the
planetarium it now houses.
In addition, EMU’s largest classroom building, Pray-Harrold, was recently renovated last fall with updates to the building and to the equipment housed inside of it. Updates to student housing, specifically Hoyt, Pittman and Hill halls were completed this fall.
The Department of Public Safety has a network of over 500 security cameras around campus, a Crime Response Unit and a dispatch unit. New residence hall swipe card locks and a campus emergency messaging alert system have also been installed.
