Soaring enrollment gives UTA its biggest graduating class ever

The University of Texas at Arlington is graduating its largest class in history — almost 5,600 students — in three ceremonies that started Thursday.

This class of graduates is 8 percent larger than the spring 2016 graduating class of 5,168 and 27 percent more than the 4,400 students who graduated five years ago.

“This is a very exciting era for UTA,” said Troy Johnson, vice president for enrollment management. “The campus is abuzz. To see the parents and the students — you really get to see the excitement that UTA is generating in DFW, and Texas, if not the nation.”

The graduates join the more than 214,000 alumni living and working around the world.

The nearly annual record-breaking graduating classes track UTA’s enrollment increases. The university reports an on-campus enrollment of 42,000 and a “global enrollment” — including students who only take online courses — of 57,000

Johnson said none of College Park Center’s 6,300 seats will be vacant during the ceremonies that began Thursday and continue Friday and Saturday.

What’s next?

“Our plan is to continue educating more Texans,” he said. “There are ambitious goals to make sure more Texans have their degrees, and we take that seriously.”

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 7:08 PM with the headline "Soaring enrollment gives UTA its biggest graduating class ever."