Written by Kelsey Dickerson, College Life Editor

After registration this semester, students at Kennesaw State University might graduate late, but it won’t be their fault.

At the start of registration for the spring 2017 semester students at KSU began to realize that there were not enough sections of some classes to accommodate everyone, a fact that will delay graduation for upperclassmen and some sophomore students.

“I can never get the classes I need, and if I do it’s right down to the very last minute,” Abby Snyder, a sophomore nursing major at KSU, said. “I am put on the waitlist for a lot of my classes because of how fast they fill up. I feel like they should offer more sections for the classes because there are always way more people than there are classes for them to take.”

Kaityln Lewis, a senior KSU student and Opinions Editor for the KSU Sentinel, penned an opinions piece that appeared on the paper’s website on Nov. 7 detailing her struggle to get into a capstone class needed for her to graduate. More specifically, Lewis wrote about her almost two-year struggle to register for a class she needs to graduate.

“Unfortunately for me, a senior trying graduate in the summer, three-fourths of the classes I registered for next semester are only offered in one section,” Lewis said. “I have been especially trying to get into Advanced Media Writing since I was a second-semester sophomore.” The class Lewis needs is only offered in one section once every semester.

A petition started two weeks ago on change.org calling for KSU to expand its class sizes or the number of classes available has accrued 2,031 signatures, just shy of the 2,500 it needs.

In the petition, Kameron Patel, a sophomore transfer student, argues that course offerings are also effecting underclassmen attempting to meet requirements to join their college of choice. Patel, who will apply for the Coles College of Business, claims that KSU will have an excess of 307 students unable to apply for acceptance to Coles College because they could not complete the class requirements.

Per the 2015-2016 KSU factbook, 66 former VSU students who transferred to KSU could be in the same boat as Patel. As of last school year, every college within KSU conferred less degrees than the previous year. With registration fears this semester it seems that graduation numbers look to go down again and there isn’t a current remedy to the problem.

“I went to my adviser and there wasn’t really much they could do,” Snyder said. “They only told me to stay on the waitlist and just wait for a seat to open up in the class, and if that doesn’t happen then I am SOL.”

KSU’s classes aren’t the only thing that’s over-crowded, though.  Earlier this year, enraged students reached out to Atlanta news outlet 11Alive about the parking situation on campus. According to 11Alive, about 22,000 KSU students have parking permits while the college itself only provides 14,000 parking spaces.

A struggle with campus parking is known on campus at VSU as well. Where last year enrollment declined by 261 students, VSU’s parking and transportation revenues increased by $803,896. With this semester’s enrollment growth, VSU could be in for the same “growing pains” KSU has felt if faculty numbers and resources are not kept up.

While KSU faculty, students and staff have participated in protests regarding recently appointed president of the university and Attorney General of Georgia Samuel Olens, no formal protests have been formed regarding class sizes.