ANALYSIS OF ENROLLMENT BY ZIP CODES

• KSU's fall 1998  enrollment included students who reside in 79 counties in Georgia.  However, for the majority of KSU's students, the university's reach extends only 20 miles.  About 9 out of every 10 KSU students reside within 20 miles of the campus in either Cobb or one of the five counties contiguous to Cobb.
   
• Almost 60 percent of the students live within 10 miles of the campus in either the northern half of Cobb or the southern half of Cherokee counties.
   
• One fourth of the students reside in East Cobb, one fourth in North or West Cobb, and another one-fourth of the students commute from either South Cobb, Marietta, South Cherokee or North Fulton.
   
• Cobb County is the residence of two out of every three students (57%).  The next largest (and fastest growing) feeder county is Cherokee with 10%, followed by Fulton with 9%.  Bartow and Paulding each provide only 3% of the student body.
   
• Zip code areas in the northern half of Cobb and southern half of Cherokee yielded the greatest gains in KSU students. Most enrollment growth came from zip code areas experiencing substantial expansion of residential housing. In contrast, the more established and stable residential areas yielded little or no gain in number of students enrolled (e.g., Marietta, Roswell, Austell, Mableton, East Marietta, Smyrna).
   
• The proportions of students residing in the six counties of KSU's primary service area correspond generally to the proportional differences in total population among those counties.  Cobb and Cherokee's projected growth through 2010 substantially outpaces the growth rates of the other four counties.  This suggests that these two counties will continue to be the residential home for 75% of KSU's students over the next 20 years and the primary source of the university's enrollment growth.
   
• Bartow's population in 1990 was less than half of the number living in Cobb 30 years ago when KJC was being planned.  The growth of Bartow County's population over the next 20 years is not projected to be great, nor will it reach the population level of Cobb in 1960.  Thus, the town of Cartersville and Bartow County may continue to contribute only a small percentage of the university's student body for the foreseeable future.
   
• Although the area within a 10 mile radius of the campus may represent the most fertile field for KSU's direct-mail marketing, expanding the reach of the university's regional impact will require target marketing in the population centers 10 to 20 miles from the campus (e.g., Woodstock, Canton, Roswell, Alpharetta, Dallas & Cartersville).