BATON ROUGE - Southern University has announced it's continuing to see an upward trend in enrollment at its Baton Rouge campus.

The total of incoming freshmen is 1,328, a seven-percent increase according to university officials. This is the second year the university has significantly increased its incoming freshmen numbers exceeding even the increase during the fall 2017 semester.

“This is exciting news for our university,” said Ray L. Belton, chancellor of the Baton Rouge campus and president of the Southern University System. “We have worked relentlessly to reverse several years of repetitive declines in student enrollment. It further illustrates the hard work occurring within our University community and indicative of the positive direction in which we are headed. We will continue gaining momentum.”

Officials also Southern's returning undergraduate student population is up seven percent. The total amount of students reported for the fall 2018 semester is 6,617.