LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Ensuring new students return for their second year is one of the keys to helping the University of Nebraska-Lincoln hit its enrollment goal.

The school announced last week that its enrollment had passed 25,000 for the first time since 1982. The goal is 30,000 students by the end of the decade.

The fall figure includes more than 4,600 first-year students, but school data say the number of first-year will be trimmed by 16 percent over the academic year.

UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman says the university is making a major effort on retention, “and we would be doing these things if our retention rate was 95 percent.”