Provo • BYU's enrollment has reached levels not seen since 2012, when the LDS Church announced it was lowering the age required to serve Mormon missions.

The Daily Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2e3Qyes ) that Brigham Young University has 33,360 students this fall semester, about 30 more than four years ago.

Enrollment had dropped 10 percent after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lowered the minimum age for missionaries from 21 to 19 for women and from 19 to 18 for men.

BYU spokesman Todd Hollingshead says the school had expected it would take a few years before enrollment reached what it was before the change.

Fewer than half of BYU students were returned missionaries in 2012, compared to 65 percent of students this semester.

The Associated Press