After the third highest enrollment increase in the University of Georgia System last year, Gordon College's enrollment climbed even higher this fall semester.

Gordon College has 2,750 students enrolled for fall semester, an 11 percent increase from last year. Early indications are the enrollment increase will be one of the highest in the university system.

“I think this will be the highest enrollment increase in the University System of Georgia,” said Gordon College President Jerry M. Williamson. “This is the highest enrollment in our history, and is the fourth straight year we have exceeded our projections of a 5 percent enrollment increase.”

One factor in the enrollment strides can be attributed to the increase in the number of students attending from the south metro Atlanta area. Although Spalding County remains the college's largest service area, Henry, Fayette and Clayton counties now rank second, third and fifth in the number of residents who attend the college.

“Atlanta's growing, Macon's growing and we're getting growth from both areas,” Williamson said,

This fall, the college has 309 students attending from Fayette County, a 45 percent increase since 1995. Fayette is the college's third largest service area, trailing only Spalding and Henry, which have 360 and 338 students attending from their respective counties. The number of students attending from Henry County has increased 173 percent since 1995. Clayton, now Gordon's fifth largest service area, has 247 students enrolled from the county, an 86 percent increase since 1995.

“We are attracting a larger and larger number of students from the south metro area,” said Dr. Steven Nape, director of enrollment services. “Our growth in the area is also reflected in that all of our off-campus classes in Henry and Fayette counties are full.”

In addition to Gordon enjoying a record enrollment, the college also welcomed a record number of students living on campus. The college has 600 students living in residence halls and, Williamson says, the college could have housed even more residence hall students.

“We had to turn students away from the residence halls because of space limitations,” said Williamson. “We probably turned away enough students to fill another dorm.”

This fall's enrollment increase comes on the heels of the school's largest enrollment increases ever last year.

Gordon had 2,476 students enrolled last fall, which was a 5.5 percent increase, and had 2,338 students enrolled for spring semester, up 7 percent from last winter quarter and up 15 percent from last spring quarter.