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CORVALLIS - Classes start Monday (Sept. 29) at Oregon State University, where school officials are predicting about 19,000 students will enroll. If so, that would be an all-time OSU record, breaking last year's mark of 18,789.

But it is still too early to claim a new record, said Bob Bontrager, assistant provost for enrollment management. Official numbers won't be released by the Oregon University System until the end of the fourth week of classes in late October.

"It looks like will have somewhere between 18,700 and 19,100 students," Bontrager said. "If we reach the middle or upper part of that range, it will be a record."

Bontrager said OSU expects about 3,000 new freshmen, matching the total from last year and temporarily easing campus concerns about the effect of recent system-wide tuition increases on this new class of first-year students. Those concerns haven't gone away, Bontrager added.

"There is a lot of uncertainty about the future," he pointed out. "Right now, we are exploring opportunities to enhance scholarship funds directed toward students who are really on the margin financially. We'd like to maintain the university's tradition of access for qualified students."

Bontrager said some of the university's enrollment strength is tied to a dual-enrollment partnership program with five community colleges: Linn-Benton CC, Portland CC, Columbia Gorge CC, Tillamook Bay CC, and Southwestern Oregon CC. A sixth partnership, with Chemeketa Community College, will be online by winter term.

More than 1,200 students are participating in the dual enrollment program, increasing the probability of future matriculation to OSU.

This fall, about 975 transfer students will enroll at OSU - mostly from community colleges.

The University Honors College is also showing growth and will enroll 146 students this year - an increase of about 17 percent over last fall's total of 125 students. That growth is by design, said Joe Hendricks, dean of the college.

"One of the university's goals is to increase the capacity of the program," Hendricks said, "because it enhances our ability to keep Oregon's best and brightest students in the state. At the same time we are growing, however, we are increasing the quality of our students.

"This year, about 90 percent of our students will come to OSU having graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class," Hendricks added.