Enrollment growth is easing up.

IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, THE CLASSES PASSing through the Oregon University System have been incredibly Large. "It's been Like an egg passing through a snake," says Bob Kieran, director of Institutional Research for the system. Now--although the number of students in the systems' seven public universities hit a record-high 80,888 Last fall--the growth is easing.

Oregon is not alone in seeing slowing enrollment growth. Other states, including Connecticut and Texas, are seeing similar trends. In Connecticut, the current year is the fourth in a row with record-breaking enrollment and the eighth in a row with growth. But officials are worried about what's to come. When in November the state's Department of Higher Education released its latest figures noting a .9 percent enrollment increase this year, Commissioner Valerie Lewis commented on the "warning bells." And in releasing the enrollment numbers for its own state, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board expressed concern that the rate of growth among Hispanic students is slowing, falling short of goals by about 30,000 students.

Record growth can't be sustained forever, and many factors come into play, economic pressures among them. Kieran, for one, attributes his state's situation to three things: the flattening out of the baby boom echo boom (the generation of children born to baby boomers), the sheer size of classes in recent years, and rising tuition costs.