A group of people are square dancing, 8 people in each column or 12 people in each column are standing in exactly one whole column, there are less than 30 people in this group, the group has

12=2×2×3,

16=2×2×2×2,

Since there are fewer than 50 students in this class,

the least common multiple of 12 and 16 is 2×2×3×2×2×2=48;

A: There are 48 students in this class.