The general exponential growth formula is:
where a is the initial amount, b is the growth multiplier, and y and x are the variables.
In this case, x represents years after 2015, y represents the number of students, and the initial value is a = 20,080.
Substituting with y = 20,582 when x = 1, we get:
Now, we can complete the table as follows:
Expressing the exponential growth formula with the rate of growth r:
where b has been replaced by 1 + r. This means that r = 0.025, which expressed as a percent is 0.025*100 = 2.5% growth