By Dale Bass – Kamloops This Week
Thompson Rivers University enrolment has increased during this school term compared to 2016.
A report to the board of governors includes 31,581 course enrolments, compared to 29,950 last fall. Course enrolments is defined as every course in which a student is registered; students registered in many courses would generate the equivalent numbers in the count.
In addition, course enrolments in trades went to 1,075 from 1,034 and in open learning to 13,954 from 13,468. Continuing studies showed a decrease to 2,514 this year compared with 2,759 last year.
READ MORE: Neaves set up bursary for CSS grads going to TRU (Nov. 24, 2017)
In terms of an actual head count of those individual students generating the course enrolment figures, the report states there were 8,325 students on campus, an increase of 5.3 per cent from last year. The statistic breaks down to 5,989 domestic students and 2,336 international students. Further demographics show 753 students identify as Aboriginal, 338 are graduate students and 336 are studying law. The head count does not include those in continuing studies or open learning.
There were 2,427 new students on campus as of September, up 4.3 per cent from 2,327 last year. That figure breaks down as 1,625 domestic students and 802 international students; 194 are aboriginal, 70 are graduate and 107 are in law.
Most come from British Columbia, at 1,385 (85.2 per cent). Alberta is next on the list with 136 (8.4 per cent) of students coming from the Wildrose Province. Every other province is represented in smaller numbers — 39 from Ontario, 14 each from Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 10 from the Northwest Territories, seven from Quebec, three each from Yukon and Nova Scotia, two from New Brunswick and one each from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut.
Most new domestic students (565) are from the Kamloops Thompson area. Ninety-four are from the Cariboo-Chilcotin, 51 are from the Okanagan-Shuswap, 45 are from Surrey, 29 are from Vancouver, 29 are from Vernon, 28 are from the Central Okanagan and 26 are from Abbotsford.
Looking at the top five homelands for international students, the majority (807, 35 per cent) are from India, followed by China (577, 25 per cent). There are 101 (four per cent) from Nigeria, 67 (three per cent) from Bangladesh and 60 (three per cent) from Ukraine.
Most international students (52.7 per cent) are enrolled in the School of Business and Economics. Just over 20 per cent are studying in the science faculty.
The majority of students are between the ages of 18 and 24 (66 per cent). Four per cent are younger than 18, 16 per cent are 25 to 29 years old, nine per cent are in their 30s, three per cent are in their 40s and one per cent are 50 or older.