UH Enrollment At An All-Time High
The University of Hawaii issued Thursday morning announcing its fall enrollment reached an all-time high of 60,231 students. That’s a 3.6 percent increase over fall 2009 enrollment of 58,157.(View fall enrollment numbers from 2003 to the present .
This year, the number of students went up at every campus except UH Manoa, where the campus experienced “a minimal decrease,” according to the press release. The biggest gains took place at Hawaii Community College (16 percent) and Windward Community College (14 percent), indicating a growing interest in the opportunities that two-year degrees have to offer.
Although the demographic breakdown of this year’s enrollment won’t be available for a couple more weeks, the high number could indicate some movement toward meeting one or two of the state’s key Race to the Top goals:
- Increasing the college-going rate of high school graduates.
- Ensuring 55 percent of Hawaii’s working age adults attain a two- or four-year college degree by the year 2025.
It could be that unemployment has driven some adults back to the college campus, or that more high school graduates are attending college, or that more high school graduates chose to remain in Hawaii for college.
Last year, 30,708, or 53 percent, of system’s students were freshmen, and 84 percent of the total enrolled students were Hawaii residents.
I wonder what bearing the increased enrollment will have on meeting one of the university’s Race to the Top goals, though. The UH System stated in the grant application that it plans to increase by 25 percent the number of students who graduate from UH by the year 2015.

Currently, only 30 percent, or 12 out of every 40 college freshmen in Hawaii, graduate on time. The most recent data show that rate is much lower at the UH Manoa campus. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 15 percent of full-time students who entered UH Manoa in 2002 completed their degrees in four years. Race to the Top calls for 19 percent of next year’s college freshmen in the UH System to graduate in four years.
