ANN ARBOR—For the fourth consecutive year, enrollment on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus has set an all-time record with 43,426 students in fall 2012, according to the U-M Office of the Registrar. That represents an increase of 710 students (1.7 percent), overall.

The number of graduate/professional students increased by 138 (0.9 percent) to 15,447 enrolled. Total undergraduate enrollment grew by 572 (2.1 percent), including an entering class of 6,171, which is 80 (1.3 percent) fewer students than in 2011.

Applications for the entering class of 2012 set another all-time record of 42,544, an increase of 2,960 (7.5 percent) over the previous year, which was also a record-setting year. The University extended 15,551 offers of admissions, a reduction of 522 from last year.

“This is the second consecutive year that we have intentionally admitted fewer students to our entering class,” said Ted Spencer, associate vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admissions. “Our goal is to maintain fairly stable enrollment numbers overall. This ensures that enrollment is scaled to resources, which optimizes the educational environment for all our students.”

The 2012 freshman class is almost statistically even in gender, with 3,083 (49.96 percent) women and 3,088 (50.04 percent) men. They arrived in Ann Arbor from more than 1,900 high schools, 46 of the United States, and 60 foreign countries.

“The breadth and depth of excellence and diversity represented in our newest entering class is remarkable,” Lester Monts, senior vice provost for academic affairs, said. “They have excelled in academics, community service and engagement, entrepreneurial endeavors, and award-winning achievement. At Michigan, they will have access to the vast resources of one of the world’s leading universities and we know they will make themselves, their families, and all of us proud of them, both as students and as alumni.”

Overall, U-M offers 6,900 courses each year. Students can choose from more than 250 undergraduate degree programs and 725 degree programs in total offered by its 19 schools and colleges.

This rich teaching and learning environment supports a 97 percent freshman retention rate and a 90 percent six-year graduation rate, one of the country’s best—8 percentage points higher than just eleven years ago, and 33 percentage points above the national average for four-year institutions.

Continuing its commitment that financial need will not constitute a roadblock to admitted undergraduate students, the University is investing more General Fund institutional resources in financial aid than ever before: $100 million in undergraduate need-based financial aid, an increase of 10.1 percent over the previous year. In most cases, the typical Michigan-resident undergraduate with a family income of less than $80,000 pays less to attend U-M now than in 2004.

The entering class of 2012 is the third to be admitted under the new federal demographic classification system, which requires all institutions of higher education to collect and report data on race and ethnicity in a new way. This methodology is not directly comparable to years prior to 2010; so disaggregated figures for specific races and ethnicities are not reliably comparable to earlier years, although overall totals and grouped subtotals are fairly comparable.

Using the new reporting guidelines, underrepresented minority freshmen constitute 10.0 percent of the incoming class. This represents a decrease from the prior year, in which underrepresented minorities accounted for 10.5 percent of the incoming class under the post-2010 reporting categories.