Imagine this: you’re graduating from high school and you have your college choice settled. You love NKU ‘- the campus, albeit a bit gray, just feels right. It has all of the classes that you wanted. Then, right when you feel like you can kick back because you got your application in, the school announces that they’re too crowded. You have a deferred start date.

It was announced last semester that due to an alarming increase in applications for this fall, NKU would have to cap enrollment. In response to the shock-waves the news caused, President Votruba said, ‘We wish we had other options, but right now we simply do not.’

Part of the reason that NKU is capping admissions is due to space limitations, but I feel that NKU could be doing more to help get some more students in.

There is a multitude of unused space on campus, options to utilize technology to admit students, as well as limitations and restrictions we can put on students with too many deficiencies. There are also things that NKU can do to discourage course overloading to keep class numbers low.

Firstly, so much of the University Center is useless space now that the Union has been completed. Don’t get me wrong, I love the new Student Union, but so many of the new offices and services offered there would do just as well in the UC. Then, maybe we could put a few larger lectures in some of the nice conference rooms.

If we still can’t fit more students on campus, why don’t we try to work with providing more online classes? That would save space while still admitting more students.

It’s also possible to further limit the number of classes that students with deficiencies can take at one time. Not only would this be beneficial to the student because it would ensure that they focus on areas they need to focus on, but it would also be practical in cutting down some overcrowding in the classrooms.

Upping the additional charges on students who take on more than 16 credit hours would also help to steer students away from taking more courses.Not one of these solutions would help to ease the over-crowding issue much alone, but if combined, NKU might be able to offer opportunities to even just a few more students.