More students are taking more classes on Utah's nine public college and university campuses than ever before. With recent and dramatic cuts in funding, that means tuition hikes are likely on the horizon.

Across the state, 12,632 more students are participating in college courses over last year, an overall 8.3 percent increase — the largest in the 40-year history of the Utah System of Higher Education.

Enrollment changes throughout the state put schools at what commissioner William Sederburg calls a "critical tipping point," where they cannot afford to run as efficiently as expected.

With one-time federal stimulus money set to run out soon, Sederburg said difficult changes will have to be made, including decreased services to students, program eliminations and less course availability, creating a "soft enrollment cap" for students who opt out of school when courses are not available.

All nine institutions experienced significant growth this year, including the College of Eastern Utah, which had struggled to maintain enrollment in the past. Education officials say the recession is driving more students to the classroom. It's also a sign of an increasingly competitive marketplace in which a degree is nearly becoming a necessity.

Dixie State College enrollment climbed 23 percent, the highest of any public college or university in the state, while the state's flagship public university saw its largest increase in 15 years, growing by more than a thousand students. University of Utah officials attribute much of that spike to students who returned to retool current careers.

Increases at Utah Valley University vaulted the already space-constrained school to the third-largest school in the state, with 28,765 students. UVU President Matthew S. Holland said the school expects to add another 10,000 in the next 10 years but is in dire need of new buildings and academic space to accommodate current growth, let alone the future bulge.

"Our largest growth happens to come from our minority populations, but our biggest source is in continuing students, those who were already here," he said, crediting the move to university status as well as development of more degree programs as "more incentive to stick around" at UVU. The Orem institution has the lowest square-footage per student when compared to other schools and Holland said tuition increases would be essential to fend off another bad budget year.

"We can't continue to grow like this and not receive additional funding and still provide a quality education," Holland said.