UF may institute an experimental program that would give incoming students the option to spend their time at UF enrolled in classes only during spring and summer terms.
UF Provost Joe Glover said the idea was born out of the need to address the university’s enrollment levels across terms.
He said while fall enrollment is consistently at capacity, winter and spring graduations lead to a drop off in enrollment numbers.
“We believe that there is a group of students out there that would like that option,” he said.
He spoke of the pilot program in Jacksonville Wednesday at a meeting of the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system and advocates on behalf of universities to the state legislature.
In order for such a program to proceed, lawmakers have to repeal a state law that allows students entering with nine or more accelerated credits to be exempt from having to take a summer term.
Most UF students are typically exempt due to high admission standards.
Once universities are allowed to require students to enroll for summer, which Glover hopes can be accomplished during the upcoming legislative session, the program can begin.
Board members supported the repealing of the law.
Glover said the university would go to the legislature to ensure that the roughly 1,000 students in the program could use their Bright Futures scholarships toward tuition.
He said he realizes how different the approach is, but that there’s no reason the fall-spring model can’t be changed.
“There’s nothing sacred about that,” he said.
Glover said the program could be in place by January 2013, with new and transfer students making up the pilot class.
The program, he said, would allow students who might not have been accepted for fall to enroll. They would have the choice to accept or go elsewhere.
