Headcount Enrollment

The Fall 1997 enrollment of 48,857 students represents a 1.8% increase from last fall's total of 48,008. Student enrollment increased for undergraduates by 3.0%, but decreased for graduates by 1.2% and Law students by 6.5%.

The proportion of female students enrolled increased slightly from last year. University-wide, enrollment increased for all ethnic groups except Black and Hispanic. American Indian enrollment increased by 10.0%, Asian American by 6.2%, white by 2.3%, and foreign by 1.3% (Table S 5). The proportional representation for Asian American and white students increased. Black and Hispanic representation decreased and American Indian remained stable (Table S 4). There was an increase in foreign student enrollment, but a slight decrease in proportional representation.

The proportion of students from Texas increased to 81.3% from 80.9% in 1996, while the percentage of out- of-state students decreased from 12.2% to 11.8%. The foreign student enrollment percentage decreased slightly from 7.0% to 6.9% (Table S 8). As a group, the largest number of foreign students are from the People's Republic of China, followed by India, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan (Table S 11). For Fall 1997, approximately 88% of the undergraduate students and 80% of the graduate students attend The University on a full-time basis (Table S 7).

Undergraduate enrollment increased or remained stable for Architecture, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, Nursing, and Social Work. Graduate enrollment increased or remained stable for Business Administration, Communication, Pharmacy, Public Affairs, Social Work, and Intercollegial Program (Table S 34).

The attrition rate after one year for the 1996 entering freshmen class was slightly lower than the corresponding attrition rate for the 1995 class. On average, the attrition rate of entering freshmen after four years at The University is about 33%. Approximately 30% of all entering freshmen graduate after four years and about 64% graduate after six years (Table S 30).

Semester Credit Hours

Total semester credit hour production increased from last fall by 3.6%. Semester credit hour production increased or remained stable at all levels except Law. (Table SCH 1).

Undergraduate semester credit hour production (measured by percent change) increased or remained stable for Business, Communication, Education, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, Nursing, and Social Work, but decreased in other schools and colleges. At the graduate level, semester credit hour production (measured by percent change) increased for Business Administration, Communication, Pharm. D., Public Affairs, Social Work, and Intercollegial Programs. (Table SCH 1).

University-wide, average student courseloads increased at the undergraduate, master's, and Law levels, but remained stable at the doctoral level. Undergraduate Pharmacy, Engineering, Architecture and Business students have the highest average courseloads. At the graduate level, the courseloads are highest for Law students, master's students in Business, Pharm. D. students, and master's students in Social Work (Table SCH 4).

Faculty/Staff

Figure FS 4 compares seven years of UT Austin's average faculty salaries (first four ranks) based on faculty appointments with average salaries from our national comparison group of institutions. For 1996-97, UT Austin's average faculty salaries climbed slightly higher than the weighted average for the rest of the institutions.

The percentage of tenured faculty for Fall 1997 is 52.4%, slightly lower than last year's figure (Table FS 5).

Degrees Conferred

The Colleges of Liberal Arts and Business Administration awarded the largest number of degrees during the 1996-97 academic year (Table D 2). Of all the degrees conferred during this past academic year, 51.2% were awarded to men, 48.8% to women, 66.6% to Whites, 11.4% to Hispanics, 9.3% to foreign students, 9.1% to Asian Americans, 3.3% to Blacks, and 0.3% to American Indians (Table D 2).