Fall enrollment increases again at WSU

Washington State University enrollment is, once again, increasing across the state, and nowhere more for undergraduate students than at the Vancouver campus.

The Salmon Creek campus saw an increase in its undergraduate enrollment by 129 students, or 4.4 percent from last fall, according to a university news release. That’s a larger increase than at campuses in Pullman, the Tri-Cities, Everett and Spokane.

Overall enrollment is up 3.5 percent at the campus, with 3,546 students enrolled. The campus also saw an increase in the number of minority and female students. This fall, 26.2 percent of the student body are minorities, up from 25.2 percent last year, while 53.3 percent are women, up from 52.7 percent.

The campus also saw an increase in its number of transfer students — who frequently transfer from Vancouver’s Clark College — to 672 students. That’s up from 624, or up 7.7 percent, from last year.

Classes started at Washington State University about a month ago, but enrollment numbers were released this week.

Undergraduate tuition at the local campus is $5,044.50 a semester for in-state students. The vast majority of WSU Vancouver students — 93.2 percent — are from Washington, compared with 79 percent systemwide.

WSU Vancouver began offering courses in Southwest Washington in 1983 as part of the Southwest Washington Joint Center for Education, first at Hudson’s Bay High School and later at Clark College. In 1989, WSU Vancouver was established as a branch campus of the state’s land grant university on 351 acres roughly a mile northeast of the 134th Street-Interstate 5 interchange. That campus opened in summer 1996.