A Decade of Change in Agricultural Economics Programs, 1975-84

University agricultural economics programs were surveyed to assess the changes of the past decade. Undergraduate enrollments increased significantly while graduate enrollments were unchanged on average. Overall, agricultural economics departments became much larger relative to the average size of colleges of agriculture. Despite some changes in expectations concerning future growth areas, most programs appear to have been successful in meeting students ' demands. In the past decade there have been con-siderable changes in the environment in which university agricultural economics programs operate [Polopolus]. The pros-pects for the future, summarized by Neil Harl in his presidential address, are that "Agricultural economics may be moving into the most important, and possibly the most turbulent, period in the history of the profession " (p. 845). Harl stressed that: "A major area of concern is whether grad-uate and undergraduate programs in agri-cultural economics are adjusting rapidly enough... and with sufficient breadth to enable the necessary extension and resident teaching activities to be carried out." He urged institutions "... to undertake a review of both gradu-ate and undergraduate programs in light of the new generation of problems likely to be facing agricultural economists and in light of the nature of the output likely to be demanded " (p. 847). As part of such a review, this project was designed to highlight impacts that envi-ronmental change has had on programs over the past decade. It is expected that much has changed since the 1975 study of undergraduate programs by Beck et al