The university expects to see record-high numbers this year when the 10-day enrollment report is released.

“It does appear that our total enrollment is going to be at a record high this year,” said Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “It was unexpected.”

Enrollment numbers released on the fifth day of classes showed an increase of 219 students from the same date in 2005, for a record high total of 12,317 registered students.

Lord said the 2005 total enrollment was a record high number, and the university was expecting numbers to go down in 2006.

The increase is welcome though, because of this year’s large graduating class. The fifth-day enrollment numbers showed 3,252 registered seniors, a class that could break the record high graduating class by hundreds of students, Lord said.

When he first took his position at Eastern in 2001, the provost set up a committee to measure how many students Eastern could enroll while still providing the same level of education. The committee estimated Eastern would best serve somewhere in the mid-11,000 range students.

“We’re a little over that range right now,” Lord said.

As the 2006 seniors and juniors graduate in the next two years, he expects enrollment to decline to near that range again.

“If we took more students, we’d start changing the kind of experience you have as a student,” Lord said. He plans to form the same committee to evaluate Eastern’s capacity for students once some of the construction on campus is complete.

Brenda Major, director of admissions, said the numbers will probably be a little different when the 10-day figures come out.

Last Friday was supposed to be the last day to register for classes, but the mainframe was down and it prevented some students from registering, she said. Some extensions were made and students were still registering on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

The number of registered freshmen has been going up everyday, Major said.

The 10-day numbers are sent to the Illinois Board of Higher Education and used to keep track of all the Illinois state universities.

“We’re always trying to determine if we’re getting our fair number of students or our piece of the pie from the state,” Major said. “We’re always looking to see who’s getting the bigger share of students.”

The 10-day numbers will be used to determine numbers like total enrollment, class enrollment, diversity at Eastern and enrollment in the Honors College.