"It feels great to be back," said Miriam George, 22, a senior at Our Lady of Holy Cross College, the first higher education institution in the metro area to begin classes.

After spending an evacuation-shortened fall semester at the massive University of Houston, George smiled widely on her first day back on the green, intimate campus of Holy Cross, a small commuter college in the Algiers neighborhood.

"Small college - big difference," she said Tuesday as she registered for classes that begin Saturday.

For weeks, Mayor Ray Nagin has been predicting that the reopening of area colleges and universities in January will jump-start the city's sluggish repopulating efforts.

Nagin has predicted that the return of college students along with the reopening 17 elementary and secondary public schools will nearly double New Orleans' population to 200,000 residents, a major leap toward recapturing its pre-Katrina population of 460,000.

Half of New Orleans' eight colleges and universities suffered major storm damage and are still undergoing reconstruction.

The city's three historically black universities - Xavier, Dillard and Southern University at New Orleans - were especially hard hit by flooding. Student enrollments have dropped sharply at all three institutions and hundreds of faculty and staff members were laid off.

With dormitories destroyed, many of those returning to New Orleans will be housed in hotels or Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers.

Those lucky enough to find affordable housing still face challenges in the storm-ravaged city.

"Virtually everybody here has had their standard of living lowered since the storm," said Susan Howell, a pollster and professor of political science at the University of New Orleans.

Howell and her husband lost their home to Katrina's floodwaters. Then her husband lost his job at Tulane University, which laid off hundreds of part-time instructors and professors after the hurricane. It was a controversial move since the school suffered no flood damage and will enjoy the return this month of 88 percent of its 6,151 undergraduates.

The couple is living in a small pool house as they wait for a FEMA trailer and the resumption of classes January 30 at the University of New Orleans.

"Life is harder here," Howell said.

There are longer lines and shorter hours at fewer grocery stores, banks and pharmacies. Traffic lights and basic services, such as utilities and phone service, still have not been restored in parts of the city.

Melissa Failla, 19, a freshman theology student at Holy Cross College, said going to class will be a welcome distraction from life at her house in flooded Metarie.

"Everything is crazy around my house," she said. "We have furniture in our house, old furniture, new furniture. Stuff in garbage bags and boxes."

Failla said she was glad to be able to see her friends again after having months bouncing around from New Orleans to Dallas to Ohio and back again.

"There are so many things that need to be done, it will be a year before you see much difference," Failla said, adding that at least she won't have finding parking on campus.

Although Holy Cross was spared flood damage, many of the college's 1,424 students were left homeless by Katrina, said president Anthony DeConciliis, a Roman Catholic priest who was inaugurated as college president two days before Katrina struck on Aug 29, then waded through floodwaters and endured deprivations in the Superdome before he could finally evacuate.

Holy Cross has no campus housing, but college officials and alumni are trying to help students and their families find suitable housing.

"We think we are going to have at least 80 percent of our fall registration," said De Conciliis.

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