When summer rolls around, the city of Ames sees a major decrease in population size. Students have finished their school year, packed up and headed home for the summer.

This is the case for many students unless they have enrolled in summer classes, making the change in commotion very prominent for students who stay in Ames and the residents of the town as well.

In the fall of 2012, Iowa State had a record-high enrollment of 31,040. This number included not only undergraduates but also graduate, professional students and postdoctoral scholars.

Of the 31,000 students in attendance, 10,426 of them were accommodated in university, on-campus residence halls and apartments, according to the Department of Residence. That equals 33.6 percent of students who chose to live on campus, leaving the remaining 20,614 to be housed elsewhere.

These 20,614 students may rent their own place, commute to Ames for classes or still reside in their parent’s home here in town.

The student population at Iowa State is a large addition to the already heft population in Ames. According to the 2010 census, Ames had a population of 58,965, which included students at Iowa State. This number drops dramatically when students go home for the summer term.

Not only are students leaving campus housing, students who live off-campus sometimes need to find persons to sublease their apartments for the summer. This can be because of jobs, internships or they simply may not want to stay in Ames for the duration of summer vacation.

Spencer Nelson, the assistant manager at Haverkamp Properties in Ames, provided information on the number of subleases within their management company.

“It would be pretty hard to actually come up with [the number of subleases]. The majority of our people don’t tell us about it,” Nelson said. “They are still in our computer as if they lived here even if they are not necessarily there. It would be pretty hard to give an estimate, but if I had to guess, I would say probably there have been about 40 [residents] that have subleased.”

In the summer of 2012, Iowa State had 10,798 students enrolled to take courses. Numbers for the summer 2013 session are not to be expected until the end of June. However, Marcia McDowell, a staff member from the Office of Registrar said the 2013 summer statistics “should be comparable to last year’s numbers.”

A definite number on students living in campus housing this summer is not available at this time. Cameron Aisenbrey, communications specialist for the Department of Residence estimated “about 800 students are living on campus this summer.”

A record number, 11,233 students, enrolled in summer session at Iowa State this year. That represents an increase of 435 students (4 percent) over last summer’s student body of 10,798 students.

Undergraduate enrollment (7,611 students) is up 5.5 percent (395 students) from summer 2012. Graduate enrollment (3,145 students) is up 1.7 percent (53 students) from a year ago. Veterinary medicine students (167) and post-docs (310) round out the 2013 summer enrollment figure.