MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – The Vermont State Colleges are in for another year of record enrollment following a steady increase in students at the five schools over the last five years.

Applications are up slightly, with Castleton State College and Vermont Technical College seeing the greatest increase.

Last year the college system had record enrollment of 12,040 students. Officials expect even more students this year.

“So, we’ll be up again this year significantly across the board,” Chancellor Robert Clarke said Wednesday.

Castleton already has enough students for the upcoming year.

The school has stopped taking applications for the fall, far earlier than usual.

Castleton received 14 percent more applications than last year and 40 percent more than in 2002.

Officials attribute the increase to better recruiting, the addition of more varsity sports teams, a dedicated faculty, small class size, and new buildings on campus.

“They’re getting a really good reputation for high quality, affordable education,” Clarke said of Castleton.

The school, which offers undergraduate liberal arts education and some graduate programs, has expanded its recruiting into the middle Atlantic states. New residential halls are going up on campus and the college now automatically admits CCV graduates who apply.

Castleton officials say they’re wary of growing too large.

“Growth has been planned but there is eventually a limit to where we are going,” Castleton president David Wolk said Wednesday. “So at some point you have to decide whether or not you can risk becoming too large and impersonal and we don’t want to take that risk.”

Community College of Vermont, and Johnson and Lyndon state colleges expect level enrollment this year.

Since 2000, the state college system has focused on branding and marketing its schools, Clarke said.

One outcome has been a boost in the number of Vermont students.

In 1999, about 33 percent of Vermonters who went to college attended one of the state colleges. Last year, that number grew to 56 percent.

“We really focussed on serving Vermonters,” Clarke said.

“People are talking about the colleges now. People realize that we’re offering a valuable education and an affordable price,” he said.

Even though the Vermont State Colleges are among the most expensive state schools in the country, they are cheaper than any other schools in Vermont, said Clarke.

The college system gets 16 percent of its funding from the state. The rest largely comes from tuition.

Tuition ranges from $6,300 for in-state undergraduate students to $13,600 for out of state students at Castleton, Johnson and Lyndon state colleges. Vermont Technical College costs $7,600 a year for Vermonters and $14,640 for out-of-state students, while Community College of Vermont charges $160 a credit hour for Vermonters and $320 for non-Vermonters.

A long running labor dispute between the state colleges and faculty union ended this year when the faculty accepted a Labor Relation’s Board settlement, after the governor threatened to veto the state budget which included language about the negotiations.

Community College of Vermont, serves mostly Vermonters, many of whom are nontraditional students. The school with its 12 sites around the state expects about 5,400 students this year.

CCV added an online learning program five years ago that offers more than 150 courses on the Internet. Enrollment to that program jumped 37 percent last year.

“That has really been a boost for CCV’s enrollment,” said Susan Henry, dean of enrollment.

AP-ES-07-20-05 1648EDT