“There’s something for everyone,” Flory said. “I have yet to find someone who doesn’t like (MSU).”

Flory is one of the reasons that MSU’s enrollment has been on a rise during the last two years, since students are finding the university more appealing than in the past, MSU Provost Kim Wilcox said.

For the first time in MSU history, the university saw enrollment of more than 8,000 incoming students, according to the preliminary enrollment report presented during the MSU Board of Trustees meeting last Friday.

First-time student enrollment has increased from 6,854 students in 2002 to about 8,100 students this year.

But the MSU community is debating whether the increasing number of students is a good thing.

An appealing shade of green

After attending MSU’s annual Sparticipation event, elementary education freshman Jenna Kotula found out MSU offers more than just academics. She was excited to explore the rest of campus, too.

“I went to Sparticipation and I wrote down my email for a bunch of clubs,” Kotula said. “I went to some meetings and found out what they were all about.”

Kotula said a tour around campus sealed her decision to come to East Lansing, calling it “really beautiful.”

As thousands of new students flock to campus, current students are reflecting on their experiences at MSU.

Their stories reflect the diversity of a campus looking to bring in out-of-state students.

Although his parents and aunt are MSU alumni, it wasn’t always clear Vince Caminiti would make the five-hour trip from his hometown of Chicago to follow in his family’s footsteps.

The cost for out-of-state students was a big problem, but Caminiti didn’t mind.

“I didn’t care (about) the cost, because it’ll pay off when I’m looking for a job,” the supply chain management senior said about attending MSU instead of a school in Illinois. “But, the only way my parents would let me go here is if I busted my (butt) and got into a reputable program.”

Unlike Caminiti, economics senior Dylan Loch said he didn’t have any parental affiliations to MSU, but a trip with his dad was all it took for him to start wearing the green and white.

“It was just the campus itself was what kind of got me,” Loch said. “He drove me around and told me a few things and right then it was an easy pick.”

Loch said without the large amount of students MSU has and such a large campus, MSU wouldn’t have the same atmosphere that makes the university great.

“More students make it more of an actual campus than if you go to (the University of Michigan) and you’re in a city,” Loch said.

Wilcox said MSU can do more things because it is so large. Without a large campus and student body, MSU wouldn’t have that appeal that makes the university one of the top schools in the nation, he said.

“Let’s say we have 4,000 new students instead of 8,000, and we have 22,000 students instead of 49,000,” Wilcox said. “When you sit down in your class, you’re much less likely to sit down beside somebody from New York, California or Korea. That’s just a different experience and so having large groups of students provides each one of them with an opportunity to contact other students in ways you simply can’t at a smaller school.”

An unexpected increase

This year’s incoming freshman class is bearing a different burden with higher tuition costs while MSU attempts to make up for a loss of state funding during the past several years.

Still, despite this year’s enrollment increase and what it could bring to the MSU community, Wilcox said the university does not plan to continue to grow for various reasons.

“This is one where, in all honesty, we didn’t plan for two large classes like this,” Wilcox said.

“We thought this year we would be able to drop the (enrollment) number down a little bit but (when) more students came, we offered up an option to (more) than we would’ve predicted.

“That happened to us last year as well, so this is one where it’s a real success story because our reputation and our appeal is growing faster than we can predict in our admissions process.”

Loch agrees MSU doesn’t need to keep growing and should find a good number to stick around for years to come.

“It’s huge,” Loch said. “I think the more (students) you add, the less benefits each student gets.”

Wilcox said it is becoming difficult to predict the incoming class because of MSU’s growing popularity both locally and nationally, mentioning the university received more than 30,000 applications.

Academic prestige

Some students said the university’s academic success drew them to the school.

MSU had the total package for economics junior Steve Widzinski.

“I thought for what it cost and what the opportunities entailed, it was a really good value,” he said.

Wilcox also said students are recognizing MSU’s academic reputation with numerous programs that are number one in the nation. MSU ranks number one in the nation in nuclear physics, elementary and secondary education, industrial and organizational psychology, supply chain management and its study abroad program.

Social relations and policy sophomore Inna Mirzoyan is in James Madison College and said it is one of the reasons why she decided to attend MSU. She also comes from a small town and meeting people with different ideas was a definite plus.

“(James Madison College is a) large school and has a lot of diversity, (getting to meet) different people from different backgrounds,” Mirzoyan said.

Not all about the numbers

Even with the increasing number of students, Wilcox said he doesn’t think the numbers are as important as other things the university provides.

“What is much more important is what each of those individuals does,” Wilcox said. “What each of those students achieve at the university, what they achieve after they graduate, that’s what’s important.

“(MSU has) a lot of individual lives that we want to make sure are successful,” Wilcox said.