GREENSBORO – The number of students at UNC Greensboro has grown steadily in recent years, making the university a richer, more diverse community.

“We’re now over 20,000 students,” UNCG Chancellor Frank Gilliam says in the accompanying video. “Which makes us sort of big enough to matter, but still small enough that we can provide our students with a real hands-on education.”

The growth has allowed UNCG to expand offerings in burgeoning majors like computer science and kinesiology, Gilliam says.

BUT GILLIAM and other university officials also have a wary eye on the horizon. 

Because birth rates dropped during the Great Recession, forecasters project a nationwide decline in the college-age population in the next five to 10 years.

Gilliam says UNCG can sustain enrollment with strategic appeals to particular groups of underrepresented students:

• Online students – he notes that 60% of students who live on campus already take at least one course online.
• Graduate students.
• Community-college transfer students.
• Unconventional students, including adults and “part-way home” students who started college, but left without a degree.
• And Hispanic/Latinx students, the state’s fastest-growing population.

“We’re very concerned about keeping enrollments up,” Gilliam says, “but are looking at several other ways to make sure that we provide the greatest accessibility possible.”