Enrollment in summer classes has topped the 10,000 mark for the first time, university officials said.

The record 10,007 undergraduate and graduate students eclipsed the previous record set in 2001 of 9,829 by 178 students. The new record comes on the heels of records for fall enrollment in both 2000 and 2001.

Minority undergraduate summer enrollment also increased by 260 students, while minority graduate enrollment increased by 14 students.

John McCarroll, director of university relations, said there wasn’t any specific reason he could point to in order to explain the increase in summer enrollment.

McCarroll said the increase could be just a continuation of the record enrollments from the previous two years, or could be due to other things such as students studying abroad and needing to take some other classes. It could also be due to students enrolling in a five-year instead of four-year program. He said the job market last spring could also have played a role in students’ decisions to take summer classes instead of working full time.

Registrar Kathleen Jones said the registrar’s office tried to do some different marketing tactics this year to promote summer classes.

“We sent an e-mail to students in the spring so they knew where to find out information about summer classes and we made the Web site more user-friendly,” Jones said. “It’s definitely an improvement over what we have done in the past.”

Summer classes provide students with more options.

“The best thing for students is to have the largest number of choices,” she said. “The more options we can provide, the better off students are.”

Marc Harding, director of admissions, said the increase in the number of freshmen over the past several years could be having an impact.

“There are more students in the pipeline,” he said. “Three years ago there were about 4,100 students in the freshman class. Then 4,352 two years ago and 4,654 students in 2001. When there are more students in the pool, if you have the same retention rate each year, then enrollment numbers are going to increase.”

Jones said the projections turned into the Regents for fall enrollment were 28,024, which would be another record. She said that those were only projections, and that as little as a one percent error in the projections could yield an error of plus or minus 280 students.

“We won’t really know how enrollment will turn out until the fall,” Jones said.

Harding said it would be difficult to say whether there would be a record set again for at least another month or so because students are still applying. Enrollment figures will also depend on how many students are retained, but he didn’t necessarily expect to see another record come fall.

The university has tried to make sure students see as little impact as possible from the $32 million in budget cuts the university has received in spite of the increasing numbers of students, McCarroll said.

“Everyone from the provost to the president, the deans and the department chairs, have worked very hard to make sure the effects of the budget cuts are minimized so students get the best experience possible,” McCarroll said.