As Kansas University’s spring enrollment creeps up, growth on the Lawrence campus is flat, according to figures released Wednesday.

“We seem to be exactly dead on,” said Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, senior vice provost. “I wish we could say that it was exactly how we planned it.”

Overall, KU numbers for this spring semester increased by 104 students to 27,994, up from 27,890 last spring. All of KU’s growth took place at KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. Enrollment at the Lawrence campus didn’t move – even by one student – from the 25,379-student mark.

McCluskey-Fawcett said the Lawrence campus was at optimal capacity for offering the quality of education the university wants to provide, and she doesn’t anticipate KU having any enrollment spurts in the near future.

At the Med Center, more students in the nursing, allied health and medical schools boosted the overall number of students from 2,511 last year to 2,615 this year.

The School of Nursing recently introduced three online majors: public health nursing, organizational leadership and health care informatics.

While the number of students enrolled at Kansas University's Lawrence campus are the same as last spring, KU's overall enrollment is up thanks to gains at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.

Clifford said online learning for nurses is a trend. The school will launch an online doctorate of philosophy in nursing program this summer.

But the nursing school can’t accept an unlimited number of students in online majors.

“Online courses take almost as much faculty time as in-class courses,” Clifford said. “We can’t just continue to grow without additional resources.”

Online nursing enrollment figures were not available Wednesday.

At KU’s Edwards Campus in Overland Park, where enrollment is measured in credit hours and not student head count, overall enrollment dropped by 1.6 percent to 11,160 credit hours, or 930 students if all were taking 12 credit hours this semester.

Enrollment at Kansas Board of Regents universities didn’t see much growth this spring, compared with last. Head counts increased by 347 students, or 0.4 percent. And Fort Hays State and Kansas State universities reported slight enrollment declines.