Excel would definitely not be the correct tool for this. Access is well
suited to this sort of data storing and mining; however, it will require your
database be set up correctly.
Here are some table you should have:
Students - All the student info including what concentration they are in.

Concentration - Defines all the concentration programs offered

Classes - Defines all classes that may be used in any concentration

ConcentrationClasses - This is a join table between Concentrations and
Classes. Since a many to many relation exists between Concentrations and
Classes, this table resolves it. It will contain a row showing each class
included in each concentration.

Class Sessions - Defines the date, time, location, each class is offered.

Enrollments - Defines which students are either enrolled in or projected to
be enrolled in a class. You can identify whether it is a projection or an
enrollment, or any other status you need with a status field. It sould
contain the Student ID, the Class Id, and the Session Id

Once you have your database structured correctly, the rest is easy.
"BMB" wrote:

I have recently had a large amount of data dumped on me and was asked to
organize it. If the data were finite, it wouldn't be a problem; but it is
subject to weekly updates with new records being added. This might take some
explaining. . .

I work in a university program office and am trying to figure out the best
way to keep up with which students are in which degree concentrations, each
of which has its own set of requisite courses. For example, there are 5
different degree concentrations with the program; one has only 6 required
courses, one has 16. I have projected dates that students anticipate taking
the courses that are required for them (e.g., "Spring, 2007").

Keeping up with the basic data (name, address, phone, program, etc.) is
fairly simple. I have it set up in Access and Excel. But what I want is
some kind of smart form that will know which classes are required of which
students based on their concentrations and can create detailed reports
showing how many students are projected to take each class during upcoming
semesters.

Does this make sense to anyone? I'm looking at it and still not sure what
to do. Any help with deciding which application (and how) to use would be
most appreciated.