Talk:List of United States public university campuses by enrollment/Archive 1

UCF Enrollment

The enrollment numbers for the University of Central Florida were incorrect on its main wikipedia page and thus were inaccurately portrayed here; the actual enrollment in the university as of 2005 is 45,090, as stated on the official Facts About UCF webpage. In light of this, I have fixed the university rankings on this page (UCF is seventh).

Did you change everything relating to it on the USF page as well? Thank you for the numbers; I was just thinking people were trying to make UCF "look better" without much evidence. Mike H. That's hot 05:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I just fixed it a minute ago on the USF as well. Sorry about the mix up--initially, I actually thought it was people trying to make USF "look better", but then I saw the error on the UCF page! All should be fixed now, though.

The largest University (by enrollment) is the University of Phoenix. Active enrollment numbers on August 8th, 2008 were above 345,000 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.17.31.126 (talk) 23:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Why individual campuses?

I'm curious about this condition:

This list of largest U.S. universities by enrollment includes only individual campuses of four-year universities.

Why are only individual campuses used? When I went to school (not at Penn State) it was common knowledge that Penn State was by far the largest university in the country, with over 80,000 students across several campuses. The defining characteristic was the administrative structure of the universities, not their geographic breakdown. Penn State has all of its campuses run under a single president and administrative structure, which is why they're considered a single university (as opposed to the UT or UC system, under which each campus is a distinct entity headed by its own administration and president).

I think perhaps there should be two pages, one for the largest universities and one for the largest college campuses. What does everybody else think of this proposal? --Wclark 22:18, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It should be individual campuses. It would be inaccurate of the true scope of each specific campus. Nobody cares how many affiliated campuses a university has. Take for instance the Texas A&M System of which I am affilated with. There are a number of campuses across the state (much like the UT System here as well). In fact, we have campuses across the world: one in Qatar, one at one time in Japan, and closer to home, in Galveston, TX, (the maritime portion of the land-sea-space grant the University has) all an intergral part of the campus. TAMU-Galveston has the distinction of being very closely associated with TAMU-College Station (the main campus) that the students there are considered part of the College Station campus. However, there are a half dozen different A&M campuses across Texas but are not part of TAMU-College Station, one of the flagship universities of Texas), despite being apart of the Texas A&M System.

If you want to include numbers by campus that's fine, but it's inheriently unfair to the differently structure universities out there to just lump the numbers all into one. Try labeling the number "main campus" or something. --Jbook 08:43, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

The numbers should at least be consistent. Some are stated as total enrollment such as UF and UCF, but others are listed as individual campuses. For instance, I know UCF’s main campus is closer to 41,000.GromXXVII 16:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Statistics come from?

What are the sources for the enrollments? I have seen conflicting numbers for several of the universities on the list. Would it be possible to provide references for each of the figures? (Cardsplayer4life 21:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC))

Canadian Universities?

What about Canadian Univerities... they aren't much different from the US ones. I suggest making this a "North American" list so as to remove the focus on the US and make it more "worldy".

Or would a seperate Canadian list be in order?

I'd just go ahead and create List of largest Canadian universities by enrollment. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 06:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

2005 and 2006

Please remember not to change the Fall 2005 numbers with Fall 2006 numbers. I had to revert someone who updated USF's numbers for 2006 in the Fall 2005 list. Speaking of, someone should create the Fall 2006 list. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 06:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

That should wait until early October, when universities on quarters have a new census. Rkevins82 03:39, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Michigan State still needs its 2006 enrollment updated. I haven't seen any new figures. Rkevins82 22:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Wisconsin enrollment figures

The listed figures do not match those from the Wisconsin registrar's office. Any thoughts? Rkevins82 04:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd go ahead and update it with the correct information. Include that as your reference. Cogswobble 00:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Enrollment figures

Most universities publish a "common data set" that has enrollment figures as of October 15 of each year. Those are the figures used by the US Department of Education. In that data set, all universities are on equal ground, as enrollment fluctuates rapidly throughout the academic year (some of the references used here indicate numbers as of the first day of classes, others show the October 15 data, and other show spring data). I suggest that we try to standardize the use of data from the "common data set" October figures for creating the rankings. -Nick^talk 20:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

University of Florida

This post is generally directed toward the anonymous editor from Stanford who is updating the UF numbers (but all might be interested in the discussion). I understand the desire to use "final" semester counts, however, it is for the sake of accuracy that we should use the same data source/timepoint for all universities on this list. Many universities do not have such "final" counts, and instead list only the standard 21st day report (as reported to the US department of education; usually taken in October each year). I am suspicious of the UF data because two other sources (on the same UF webpage) list the 50,912 count and this most recent one all of a sudden lists a higher number. One can only speculate as to the other universities' "final" counts, however those are defined. At the October reporting date, the ranking was reported in the media (and confirmed by the October data) as OSU, ASU, then UF. To use enrollment numbers that are generated at various times throughout the semester leads to inaccurate counts as enrollment fluctuates over time.

And, by the way, the October numbers aren't "preliminary," they are a specific criterion used by the US Department of Education. These figures represent the total number of students--graduate and undergraduate--enrolled in the university as of the 21st day of the academic year (so chosen because many people fail to attend/withdraw in the first several weeks). Since ALL universities report this number, it is the standard by which enrollment counts should be determined. -Nick^talk 08:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

How about scrapping the 6-10 year old data, and extend the list to 20 schools

Who cares much for material from 1996-2000. I'd be more interested in knowing about more schools in the more recent last 5 years. By the way, I think its time to update the list to include the 2006 data.Micael 00:23, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

We could probably do that. Perhaps we'll start with this year's data. (I assume you mean 2007 data, since the 2006 data is already listed.) The 2007 list should be released when schools reach the 21st day of classes (which won't be until October for the schools on the quarter system). -Nick^talk 01:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. I think the 10 or so years of old data just makes the list way too long. I think Top 15 would be good. I guess I will start to work on it unless other people oppose? Dgreco 18:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Updates

I am reading the Arizona State University newspaper now - the University enrollment has reached 64,394 students. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.169.70.124 (talk) 22:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I saw that as well, but that is the total enrollment (ASU Tempe + West Campus + Polytechnic Campus), and this list is for single campuses (i.e., just the Tempe campus). The schools that are on the semester system should be reporting their official 21-day enrollment figures soon. Schools that are on the quarter system won't reach the 21st day for another two weeks. -Nick^talk 22:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I am hesitant to change the page, as I am not a frequent contributor, but I noticed that the 64,394 number is listed for ASU; however, this is not cited and, even worse, displays a former citation. Since this number has been rejected, I would suggest a reversion from this false figure. Bradtl85 (talk) 05:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

2007 data up

I unhid the table with the fall 2007 data. Colleges have now all reported the fall 2007 enrollment. However, I can't find any existing list of the largest campuses beyond the top five. All I was able to do was take those schools that were listed in the 2006 table and update their enrollments for 2007. I then re-ranked the schools accordingly, and revealed the table. It may very well be the case that there is a campus or two that has a larger enrollment than some of the schools on the list, but I'd have to blindly guess in order to figure them out. If someone knows of a campus, please add it to the list. If someone finds an existing 2007 top 10 (or more) list, please share. -Nick^talk 23:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Dispute: inconsistent data

I’m going to put a factual dispute on the page because of an issue that’s been around for a long time, and never addressed. Admittedly it is difficult to address because different schools report seem to only report one of the two categories of enrollment I’m talking about. If the data can’t be located there should probably be some sort of disclaimer.

Specifically I’m talking about the issue of individual campuses versus total enrollment, and the fact that some universities have their main campus listed, while others have the total enrollment listed. I don’t know about all the universities, but some of them have multiple campuses yet have their total enrollment figures listed (likely because the accessible data only has the total enrollment figures).

I know that the University of Florida and University of Central Florida both have multiple campuses, but have their total’s listed. The others I don’t know either way.

This is misleading, however. Because for instance Pennsylvania State University in both categories (total, main campus) has more enrollment than University of Central Florida, yet appears on the page to have less. There are other relationships that are actually different as well, I just happened to know that one off hand. GromXXVII (talk) 23:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I've looked into UCF and found that there are several small "regional" campuses (about 400-500 students each) that are most likely included in the main campus enrollment count. I've started by putting a footnote that mentions this. However, I scoured the UFlorida website and couldn't find any mention of multiple campuses--there are no maps, directions, administrative documents, fact sheets, admissions info, or student life info that mentions anything other than the main campus. Of the top 10 schools listed, I know that ASU, U-Wisconsin, PSU and U-Minn-TC list only main campus figures. The rest, I'm not sure. -Nick^talk 16:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed I don’t think the University of Florida’s other campuses are very significant enrollment wise (I don’t think any are intended for full time students but rather professionals in various fields). University of Central Florida’s are though. For example if I’m reading the table on page 7 (11) of http://uaps.ucf.edu/enrollment/files/ucf_fte_enrollment_plan_2006_12_documentation_16june2006.pdf correctly, adding up the other campuses comes to 5189 students in 2005. GromXXVII (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Data source(s)

Is there a particular reason we're relying on press releases and individual websites of institutions for the data in this table instead of something more reliable (like pulling it directly from IPEDS)? These data do not seem to correspond with what I recently pulled from IPEDS. For example, where is Miami-Dade? --ElKevbo (talk) 20:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I looked at IPEDS, but I couldn't find a single integrated list of colleges and universities ranked by enrollment. Do you have a link? We count on 21st day enrollment figures that are supposed to be the same as the ones reported to the USDOE. As for Miami-Dade, the preamble of this article notes that this list is of individual four-year university campuses. From what I see, Miami-Dade has several campuses, and it is overwhelmingly a two-year school. There is another list somewhere that is of individual "universities" that would most likely include Miami-Dade. -Nick^talk 00:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find a single published table but it's easy to extract the data using the Dataset Cutting Tool.

And Miami-Dade is an overwhelmingly two-year college but it began offering four-year degrees a few years ago. So right now it makes a great "are you really up-to-date?" test case in many circumstances. --ElKevbo (talk) 10:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you talking about Miami-Dade college? I could not find a Miami-Dade university. Further, Miami-Dade college has about half of it’s student body not seeking credit, and of the half that are seeking credit the majority are part time.

So when you compare it’s full time students seeking credit (the numbers reported by the other universities), Miami-Dade college comes in at under 22,000. GromXXVII (talk) 11:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Correct: Miami-Dade College. From where are you pulling those numbers? --ElKevbo (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I’m pulling them off their factbook (http://www.mdc.edu/ir/fbind.asp, and http://www.mdc.edu/ir/statsind.asp). In particular http://www.mdc.edu/ir/Fact%20Book/enrgro.pdf and http://www.mdc.edu/ir/Fact%20Book/ftpt.pdf.

I’m not sure why there’s a discrepancy in the total though – that is the enrgro page lists the credit enrollment as about 80000, but in all the other pages the total is about 58000. Searching through the other pages it appears the difference is that the former is counting vocational, apprenticeship, GED, and other such programs.

Also note that these numbers aren’t too surprisingly high – many colleges, even community colleges, have pretty high enrollment. The difference is the fact that they have so many part time people or people not seeking a degree, and/or people seeking only an associates.

Also note their total graduates with a bachelors: 2005 – 4. 2006 – 26. 2007 – 45. Whatever the consensus as to what schools are included on this page and what are not, a college that has only graduated 75 people with a 4 year degree would certainly not be considered large, even comparing it to other 4 year colleges.

There is also the fact about the campuses. Having recently (2004?) been a only a community college it has quite a few campuses. Speaking of where the data comes from… this is also a issue there in general: because as far as I can tell some universities report their total enrollment in the common data set, while others report only their main campus enrollment. (defeating the purpose of a common data set). Because of this I believe Texas A&M and UCF should be below Michigan State. U of Texas also has several thousand in other campuses, but not enough to change the order. But without better data I don’t think there’s anything that can be done.GromXXVII (talk) 16:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Miami-Dade is interesting but it's not the central issue. As you state, we need better data. I think we would be better off using IPEDS data or some other comprehensive source of vetted, reliable data instead of pulling this information from random press releases and institutional webpages.

In addition, I would also lobby for some common and documented definitions for this and other similar articles. It's titled "list of largest universities" but the first line in the list says "education institutions." So is this limited to universities or what? And is this FTE or headcount?

The point is that the naive question "What's the biggest college in the US?" is actually quite complicated. And trying to answer that question by cobbling together data from multiple sources, some of which may or may not be reliable, seems a poor way to try to answer the question. --ElKevbo (talk) 19:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The data should be the same as long as you don’t get the semester start/end data, I think the standard is to report the 21st day, it’s just a matter of finding it. the IPEDS site also currently appears to only have 1986-2006 data, I couldn’t find any data for 2007 in a quick search.

All the schools shown I believe are FTE (full time enrollment). 3 include multiple campuses because the actual data has not been found. I don’t think any is only FTIC (first time in college), though of that I’m not sure.

If you find a good up to date source for these numbers, let us know… (the most effective means I’ve found so far for verifying the data is going to the university websites and finding their submission of the common data set) GromXXVII (talk) 20:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

ElKevbo hit the nail on the head, in that "What's the biggest college" is a very complicated question. I think of it as similar to the several lists that rank US cities by population: Of course, you can define a city by it's city-limits population, but when people think of "city size" they often are judging the metropolitan area. This is why you can find list of biggest US cities by city size, MSA, CSA, and Urban Area Population.

Adding to this mess is that different states organize their universities differently. Some count entire university systems as a single school (e.g., University of Texas), and we must dig for details on single campuses. Others consider each campus separately, and some (e.g., Arizona State University) are truly single schools that are spread out over multiple nearby campuses. The numbers reported to the Common Data Set may not reflect the specific definition stated in this article, so sometimes we have to dig into each school's website.

One last thing I'll mention is yet another way to differentiate schools: Campus population. For example, the Tempe campus of Arizona State University is larger than the University of Wisconsin at Madison. However, ASU has a large proportion of commuter students, and UW does not. Visit each campus, and you will see a drastic difference. UW "seems" like a much bigger school because there are always tons of students around. Visit ASU after 7PM and it is a ghost town. -Nick^talk 22:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

We're not in the business of making up our own definitions. --ElKevbo (talk) 03:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

No, but we are in the business of seeing the complexities in phrases like "largest college," and anticipating the different ways that people conceptualize such ideas. This list is only one way to present information on "largest colleges;" there are other ways to do so, and I think we should have articles that cover all such possibilities. If the list that you were looking for does not exist, then by all means create it. (To further illustrate my point, search wikipedia for a list of the tallest buildings in the world. How many lists are there?) -Nick^talk 08:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Recent edit...

This page claims to only contain information on single campuses. The recent edit regarding USF is using USF’s total enrollment to the other universities main campus. The source is only as reliable as the information it is reporting, which is not the information this article claims to give. (and just for comparison purposes, the school that was removed, Pennstate, has around 90,000 if you compare their total enrollment) GromXXVII (talk) 22:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Your evidence that this number includes multiple campuses is...? The IPEDS info doesn't seem to support your assertion (not that IPEDS is perfect). --ElKevbo (talk) 02:22, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

...easily found when searching the USF webpage: USF Facts 2007-2008. The delineation of the campuses is clear. Kevbo-I understand the fact that the IPEDS says something different than this list. I 100% encourage you to compile that data into a list of largest US universities by total enrollment, and perhaps we can change this page to be a list of largest US university campuses. Or, we could put both lists on the same page. As I mentioned in earlier discussion, there are several equally valid ways of defining what the "largest university" in the US is. For example, do online colleges count? Do you use a headcount or FTE measure? Do you use the accreditation standard for defining the boundaries of a university, or do you use a physical standard? I think it would be good to address all of these. -Nick^talk 06:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Also note that IPEDS can be quite misleading when dealing with schools with multiple campuses. In particular if the campuses have the same Program Participation Agreement with the Secretary of Education the school can actually choose to file the branch campuses together with the main, or separate. This makes comparison difficult because for instance USF and UCF choose to file them all together, while Penn State files all their campuses separately. GromXXVII (talk) 12:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but I'm still a bit surprised that the branch campuses aren't listed as related institutions (compare with Washington State University and its branch campuses. Stupid, inconsistent IPEDS... --ElKevbo (talk) 18:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Can someone explain in layman's terms why USF can't be on the list (at #9) with the footnote about regional campuses, but UCF can? UCF's reference site does not mention anything about being only from the one main campus. Quoted from above, regarding the footnote: "I've looked into UCF and found that there are several small "regional" campuses (about 400-500 students each) that are most likely included in the main campus enrollment count. I've started by putting a footnote that mentions this." Please explain why this would not apply to USF as well, as USF's regional campuses are the same type as UCF's. -iamguppie (talk)

We are about to rename this article to make it specifically about single campuses, and we will need to figure out exactly what UCF's main campus enrollment is (which should be within 1000-2000 of the overall total, because of the tiny size of the extension campuses). USF specifically lists their enrollment by campus, and the main campus is clearly separated from the branch campuses (which are much larger than UCF's branches). -Nick^talk 20:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

USF publishes their main campus enrollment. UCF does not. Thus it is clear that USF does not make the list. I didn’t have the motivation to go as far as to figure out what main campus enrollment of UCF, Texas A&M, or Texas at Austin.

I believe from the light research into it I did earlier that the order of UCF, Texas A&M, and Michigan State would be a little different if we had the correct data. That will require somebody with the patience to figure out what those figures are. (I figured I would, but seeing as 2008 data should be going up soon I figured I would wait until then to bother)

Also to note, is that when we figure that out, whoever goes to figure that out should probably explain in detail where they got it from on this talk page – because it will probably be contested dozens of times throughout the year (from either IPEDS or school reported data, not realizing they include branch campuses). I doubt this would be classified as original research as it is nothing more than subtracting values that the school report and can be cited, which should fall under common knowledge. GromXXVII (talk) 00:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Multiple campuses?

GromXXVII, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I simply don't see what you are referencing. If you can give me a page or a phrase, I'll be happy to see what you're looking at. On a further note, from what you are saying, I think you are talking about Texas A&M Qatar, A&M Galveston, and the A&M Campus in Castiglione Florentino (in Italy). These are simply extensions of the main campus (much like an agricultural research facility in a corn field can simply be part of the main campus). They fall under the same University, they register through the main campus for their classes, and the University President makes the decisions at these facilities. These are not the same as A&M Kingsville, West Texas A&M, A&M Corpus Christi, Prairie View A&M, etc. as they fall under the University system of schools. They have their own University Presidents, their own faculty, their own system for class registration, etc. Hope that clears up the distinction. — BQZip01 — ^talk 03:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I compared the IPEDS figures to the reported figures in their 2007 data set. (which was hard to find by the way, because their factbook is no longer updated. I used http://www.tamu.edu/oisp/reports/student.html). Universities have two options for reporting to IPEDS: If they satisfy some conditions they can report their branch campuses as part of the university as a whole. Or they can choose to (or if not satisfying those conditions must) report them separately.

Consider just the Galveston campus. This does not have a separate entry in IPEDS, and so if Texas A&M is not lying to IPEDS must be in the figures they reported, which is 46,542 figure.

So even though they are an extension of the main campus, they are not the main campus and should not be included. However, because the university does not publicly break down the figures to my knowledge we don’t actually know what the main campus enrollment is. Hence it is labeled as including it’s branch campuses. GromXXVII (talk) 15:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I disagree that they shouldn't be included as the only difference is the specific location of the buildings. They are the "main" campus, but I think the problem is the definition of "main". I believe you're thinking that is the central campus that everyone thinks of when you say "school X". I'm thinking of the legal entity whether people have thought of it or not. Now that I understand the branch campus mentality you're talking about, I see no reason to remove such a note for purposes of clarification. Thanks for the discussion. — BQZip01 — ^talk 06:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Proposed move

The issue of schools with multiple campuses has come up many times on this page. I think I finally see why it is a recurring issue. Although the first line of the article states This list of largest United States higher education institutions by enrollment includes only individual four-year campuses, not four-year universities, the title is List of largest United States universities by enrollment. This is probably confusing because sometimes a university is considered as including all it’s campuses, and sometimes as just it’s main campus. Thus I propose the article be renamed

List of largest United States university campuses by enrollment

I think this would both help to reduce future confusion about what the page is, and allow readers to realize that the total size of a university may be higher. (which sometimes is a big difference, for instance with Penn State which is nearly double the size when you include it’s other campuses) GromXXVII (talk) 15:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. You should probably throw the "proposed move" template on the article to ensure sufficient notice and discussion but it sounds like a no-brainer to me. --ElKevbo (talk) 15:54, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. But I think we should keep this page and create a new list based on total university enrollment. However, I should note that there are two types of universities with multiple campuses: Some run under a single administration (one president, one provost, one faculty senate, accredited as a single university; e.g., Arizona State University), and some have separate administrations (separate presidents, separate faculties, campuses are separately accredited; e.g., University of Texas). The difference between the two has to do with how the state handles university administration. Perhaps we should further delineate along those lines (or at least note it in the table of rankings)? -Nick^talk 17:36, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the common person would really care about the handful of university systems that lump all of their campuses together when reporting statistics. It might be worth an asterisk or footnote when we invariably have to dig a bit deeper to get the campus numbers but I don't think it's worth maintaining this article separately from the proposed new one. The only article I could see that *might* be worth maintaining would be a list of US systems by enrollment but that immediately gets into some OR and POV issues as editors struggle to determine what is a system and what is not. For example, is Indiana University a system? Any rational person says "yes" but the administrators and legislators insist on "no." --ElKevbo (talk) 18:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I think a case study in the issues presented is Texas A&M. They have both branch campuses and other universities within the university system. How you count them is solely based on the discretion of the institution. There isn't one simple way to count them. Any attempt to lump the two together is inherently flawed and will be incomplete. — BQZip01 — ^talk 06:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

We all seem to be in agreement--should I just move the page? This does seem like a non-controversial move, since we are simply adding a word to the title to make it more accurate. -Nick^talk 18:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

More on my revert

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to split it into public and private universities. I was more concerned that the historical data may not be accurate and may not be verified. That is, the site it came from includes all campuses – and is probably in fact the same data one could find on IPEDS which are not always campuses. (in fact universities in some cases can choose to or not to combine multiple campuses and report it as one) I think that if we start changing 2006 or older data that it will be more prone to inaccuracies because during 2006 many people independently verified the data. Now probably almost nobody will bother to check it.

So if there is to be a table for public and private universities separately, I think it should start with 2008. GromXXVII (talk) 12:43, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that is fair and makes sense. I would ask if the Top 10 Private be added into the hidden section and as the numbers come out we can add/update. Those top 10 would be the best starting point since in 2006 they were the largest. I think in 2008 Columbia would actually surpass a few of the schools. Along with a few other bigger schools in the Boston/NYC areas. I noticed most other privates are fairly small out of these two areas. Dgreco (talk) 15:18 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Dispute NYU's enrollment

I would like to dispute NYU's stated enrollment of 50,917. The reference (NYU's website) says the following about enrollment:

Enrollment

• Total: 50,917
• Undergraduate: 19,401
• Graduate and Professional: 18,990
• Noncredit Programs: 12,526

The department of education and the Common Data Set program count total enrollment as the combination of undergraduate and graduate/prof students (either by headcount or FTE). I don't know what "noncredit" students are, but I have a strong feeling that, if they exist at other schools, they are not counted in the enrollment figure. In fact, if you look here you will see that NYU itself does not count these "noncredit" students in its official reports to the Dept of Education. Therefore, I recommend that, for the purposes of this ranking, NYU's enrollment should be listed as 38,391. -Nick^talk 00:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I am also not sure what non-credit student are. I assume they are mostly employees (ground crew, security, other staff etc...) who are given the opportunity to take free classes. I have no problem with the change to 38,391. So whenever you want that would be a good change. . Dgreco (talk) 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Edit dispute

There is currently an edit dispute with this page, and I have requested partial page protection.

An anonymous editor would apparently like to discuss an edit that I made to the intro to this article. This list of university campuses is often the subject of controversy because of the complexity of what we are measuring (e.g., what is a "campus", when do you count "enrollment"?, who is included in "enrollment"). Recently, I realized the need for different lists that address different definitions of universities and campuses. The list on this page is and always has been about specific campuses. If you check the history, you will see that single-campus non-online schools are what this list is about. In order to make that explicitly clear, I reworded the introduction.

The anonymous editor is under the impression that I have somehow changed what this page is about, when, in fact, I have tried to clarify what this page is and always has been. I suspect the anonymous editor had a different idea about what this page was, so he/she kept reverting my contributions (and the contributions of other editors) without comment and with vague/confusing edit summaries.

Also note that, in an attempt to help the situation, I created another page List of largest United States universities by enrollment that is similar, but is more broad in scope, and includes online and multi-site universities. -Nick^talk 19:34, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I feel what you want to include in this page and what the page title suggests are very different. If you want to create a page with exclusion simply create a new page that says something like Largest Brick and Mortor Insititutions by enrollment. 208.120.47.96 (talk) 19:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

What is the dispute is about? One edit comment mentioned online institutions – though it is my impression that online institutions do not have a campus by the fact that they’re online. Thus they would not be listed here.

This page has historically had a lot of misunderstanding as to what is and what is not included. If editors have mixed that up, so readers probably have as well. Thus it is probably a good to make the page more explicit. GromXXVII (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

To the anon editor -- I'm a little confused. The title of this page is "List of largest US university campuses by enrollment." The dictionary definition of "campus" is "the grounds, often including the buildings, of a college, university, or school." I honestly don't see how what I've written is different than that. If you go back in the page history, you will see that this list (which used to go back 12 years) is and was always a list of physical campus locations. The bullet-point list I wrote was meant to clarify what sort of schools are included on the list. I based my intro on the actual content of the list, not the title of the page.

But I am still unclear as to what you disagree with. This list is specifically about campuses, and so are you arguing that online schools should be considered a "campus"? Personally, I would disagree with that based on the definition of a campus, but you can argue that point if you want. The other list (List of largest United States universities by enrollment) covers all universities, online or otherwise.

I want to reiterate the fact that I in no way seek to claim ownership of these pages, but I will always strongly insist that there is a clear definition of what sort of schools should be on the list (and how enrollment is counted--there are many ways that can distort the true count of students), and that any changes to the list are consistent with that definition.

One final point--You (anon editor) are insistent that we discuss things before making changes, so I ask you to do the same thing. For example, when you inserted CUNY into the other list, if you honestly didn't know how to properly insert it and reference it, then perhaps it would be a good idea to leave a message on the discussion page on that article saying "Hey--I see that CUNY has an enrollment of ______, but I'm not sure how to add it to the list." That way, I or some other editor can help out. Instead, if you insert it into the wrong place, it messes up the accuracy of the list. -Nick^talk 20:11, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear that this list is not intended to include online institutions. However, the criteria need to be tightened up beyond simply including only brick-and-mortar campuses. What about the giant community colleges like Miami Dade? They (a) enroll undergraduates and (b) award 4-year degrees. And if we're going to exclude online institutions where do they belong? --ElKevbo (talk) 21:04, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

One more issue for people to chime in on. There are three parts to this page: 1) The list itself, 2) The description of the list, and 3) The title of the list. In order for this page to be accurate, all three of these things should agree with each other. We already have the list, and so my changing of the intro was geared toward accurately describing what was already on the list. If the anon editor has a problem with the criteria for the list, then he/she should explain that here (there are currently no online universities listed, nor have there ever been in the history of this page). In the mean time, I have changed the page to a hybrid of the various versions that have gone around: GromXXVII's intro sentences, my bullet points, and I removed the point about online universities per anon's complaints.

But I just want to say: This list currently does not include online universities. By removing that point from the intro (per anon's desires), the intro is now less accurate than it was before. -Nick^talk 21:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

ElKevbo-thanks for discussing. A while ago, you mentioned IPEDS and brought up some good comments about colleges like Miami Dade. I actually created a second list: List of largest United States universities by enrollment that includes all universities and is based on the IPEDS data. I figured Miami-Dade and other multi-campus or online schools could be listed there. Because the content of this page was about campuses, the page was renamed a while ago to be specific about single campuses. Now that there are two lists, this list is basically a subset of the more inclusive version based on the IPEDS data. -Nick^talk 21:09, 20 February 2009 (UTC)