Enrollment Booming at One Georgia University

CUMMING, GA — Things are going to be a bit more crowded this week as students begin returning to the University of North Georgia.

The five-campus university, perhaps best known for its senior military program, plans to welcome more than 18,000 students when fall classes begin Monday.

That's going to be an increase of roughly 1,000 students from last year and continues an enrollment surge UNG has seen over the past few years.

"In contrast to many of our peers, we receive more and more applications each year and the number of students in our region continues to increase," University of North Georgia President Bonita Jacobs said Tuesday in her State of the University address. "This growth is a positive trend; however, I know it presents challenges."

Serving a swath of northeast Georgia, UNG has campuses in Blue Ridge, Cumming, Dahlonega, Gainesville and Oconee. It was created in 2013 with the merger of Gainesville State College and North Georgia College & State University.

And the sixth-largest university in Georgia has been booming.

The school's enrollment grew 2.5 percent in its first year, hitting 16,508 students in the fall of 2014.

In 2015, that number hit 17,289, marking the second-highest percentage growth in the entire University System of Georgia.

In addition to a simple increase in the number of interested students, Jacobs credited the university's focus on student retention and graduation, in part, for the rising numbers.

Those numbers have left university administrators working hard to keep up.

This year, UNG is hiring or has hired for 128 new faculty and staff positions.

"Coming from all parts of the country, they will bring a variety of new ideas and perspectives to our community that will be invaluable as we move forward," Jacobs said in her speech.

Over the past two years, the University of North Georgia has added 1,242 parking spaces and two shuttle systems in an effort to help students travel to, and on, its campuses.

In the past three years, scholarship funding at UNG has grown from less than $500,000 to roughly $2.5 million annually.

In just the past year, the university nearly doubled the $1.3 million that was raised for scholarships in 2015.

The university has an estimated economic impact of $545 million annually in the communities it serves.

Photo and graphic courtesy University of North Georgia