to double the size of the student body. Let's compare.

BYU has 29,672 students on 560 acres. Provo High is 25 acres, so that puts us as 585 acres.

Michigan: 44,718 on 3177 acres (15 students per acre)
Michigan State: 50,543 on 10,000 acres (5 students per acre)
Ohio state: 58,322 on 1,765 acres (Columbus)(33 students per acre)
Indiana: 48,541 on 1,937 acres (25 students per acre)
Maryland: 38,140 on 1,250 acres (30 students per acre)
Penn State: 46,606 on 5,448 acres (College Park)(9 students per acre)
Rutgers: 40,720 on 2,688 acres (New Brunswick)(15 students per acre)
Illinois: 44,087 on 4,552 acres (10 students per acre)
Iowa: 33,334 on 1,700 acres (19 students per acre)
Minnesota: 48,231 on 2,730 acres (17 students per acre)
Nebraska: 25,260 on 613 acres (41 students per acre)
Northwestern: 20,955 on 240 acres (87 students per acre)
Purdue: 40,451 on 2,602 acres (15 students per acre)
Wisconsin: 43,338 on 936 acres(46 students per acre)

Average: 26 students per acre
Average of top 4: 52 students per acre

At an enrollment of 60,000 students on 585 acres, BYU would have 102 students per acre, easily higher than all the big 10 schools. At 29,672 on 560 acres, 52 students per acre already feels crowded. As a recent student I would avoid campus when I could because of this. I won't calculate the town size to university enrollment size for all of these, but I can say that subjectively, Provo also feels crowded. 60,000 students on our current land (including all of Provo high school) sounds like a bad experience. Interestingly, after some complicated conversions I figured out that New York City has approximately 42 people per acre.

On the other hand, I'm not worried about academic elitism anymore. The Big 10 schools are all respected institutions with large enrollments, so I'm sure BYU can swing it too. It's the space I'm worried about. I figure that if we want to increase to 60,000 students on the Provo campus, we need to find a way to acquire at least 400 acres in Provo.