NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Enrollment at Tennessee's public colleges and universities is expected to top 200,000 this year, a historic figure education officials attribute to lottery scholarships that are allowing students to attend school instate.
"Preliminary results show we may surpass that number," said Brian Noland, associate executive director of policy and planning at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. "We're eager to see if we cross that threshold for the first time in history."
Final enrollment data won't be available for about a month, Noland said, but surpassing last year's total figure of 199,921 seems highly likely. He said there's been a "slow and steady increase" over the last few years.
At the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, spokesman Tom Milligan is expecting overall enrollment to be just over 26,000, more than last year's 25,677. Undergraduate enrollment at the flagship college was 19,634 last year, and UT officials expect that number to be over 20,000 this year.
"The lottery scholarships had a big role in it," Milligan said.
State Sen. Steve Cohen, the Memphis Democrat who championed the creation of a state lottery to help more students get into college, said he's pleased to see so many students taking advantage of the merit scholarships.
"It shows that the lottery is working," said Cohen, who sponsored legislation in the recent General Assembly to raise scholarship amounts. "We're keeping our best students at home."
Besides instate students, many of the state's schools are taking in students from the Gulf Coast who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Gov. Phil Bredesen recently announced that the schools would accept transfer students from colleges and universities closed by the disaster. Those who already paid tuition at their former schools wouldn't have to pay tuition at their new Tennessee school.
Noland said those numbers are too small right now to affect Tennessee's enrollment figures, but he said what the state is doing is impacting those students' lives in big way.
"What our institutions have done is phenomenal," he said, "especially making accommodations in a very short time period."
As of last week, a little more than 400 students have come to the Volunteer State from 11 closed institutions along the coast, according to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
The University of Memphis has received the most of any Tennessee school with close to 300 students admitted, followed by UT-Knoxville with about 100.
Others receiving students were Tennessee State, Middle Tennessee State, UT-Chattanooga, UT-Martin, Tennessee Tech, Austin Peay, East Tennessee State and seven community colleges.
