During flex week and at the August board meeting, Chancellor Raghu Mathur crowed repeatedly about increased enrollments and FTES. A trustee openly inferred that the district’s promotional efforts were responsible.But the obvious question was: how widespread is this phenomenon? Is it state-wide? County-wide?
Nobody seemed to know.
Well, it does appear that there is a general positive trend afoot. In yesterday’s OC Reg, our pal Marla Jo Fisher reports that, locally, “Enrollment was down at local public universities this fall–the first time in anyone's memory that the student population in a growing county actually decreased. But their loss was a gain for community colleges, which picked up students who'd been shut out of four-year schools.” (Students pick community colleges over universities this fall)
Marla seems to be implying that the increase in enrollments at community colleges can be attributed to the lower enrollments at public universities. I'm not so sure about that.
Marla provides a chart of “projected enrollment” per (local) college compared to enrollments a year ago:
Chapman U +1.7
Soka U +7
UCI -6.8
CS Fullerton -1.4
Cypress +8.7
Fullerton +7
IVC +15.7
Saddleback +8
Santa Ana +0.8
Santiago Canyon +0.5
According to a spokesman for OCC, “The cost of tuition and just about everything else is higher at the four-years.” He notes the high price of gas as well. Marla says that state universities have been “hiking student fees.” Meanwhile, “community colleges saw their fees reduced to $20 a unit last year.”
Obviously, the real standouts here are Cypress, Fullerton, IVC, and Saddleback—all of them community colleges. Their increases are matched by that of Soka, a private university in South County.
So, at least in Orange County, there is a general trend, and it is pretty consistent, and, no doubt, it is assisted to some extent by fee increases at UC. But since relatively few students go to our local UC (it has about 25,000 students total), this phenomenon would seem to reflect other factors, such as the economy.
Well, it does appear that there is a general positive trend afoot. In yesterday’s OC Reg, our pal Marla Jo Fisher reports that, locally, “Enrollment was down at local public universities this fall–the first time in anyone's memory that the student population in a growing county actually decreased. But their loss was a gain for community colleges, which picked up students who'd been shut out of four-year schools.” (Students pick community colleges over universities this fall)
Marla seems to be implying that the increase in enrollments at community colleges can be attributed to the lower enrollments at public universities. I'm not so sure about that.
Marla provides a chart of “projected enrollment” per (local) college compared to enrollments a year ago:
Chapman U +1.7
Soka U +7
UCI -6.8
CS Fullerton -1.4
Cypress +8.7
Fullerton +7
IVC +15.7
Saddleback +8
Santa Ana +0.8
Santiago Canyon +0.5
According to a spokesman for OCC, “The cost of tuition and just about everything else is higher at the four-years.” He notes the high price of gas as well. Marla says that state universities have been “hiking student fees.” Meanwhile, “community colleges saw their fees reduced to $20 a unit last year.”
Obviously, the real standouts here are Cypress, Fullerton, IVC, and Saddleback—all of them community colleges. Their increases are matched by that of Soka, a private university in South County.
So, at least in Orange County, there is a general trend, and it is pretty consistent, and, no doubt, it is assisted to some extent by fee increases at UC. But since relatively few students go to our local UC (it has about 25,000 students total), this phenomenon would seem to reflect other factors, such as the economy.
WHAT ABOUT IVC?
But none of this explains why Irvine Valley College experienced roughly double the increase compared to the other colleges. IVC is the real anomaly here.
Anybody got any ideas?
(CAVEAT: I should mention that, historically, newspaper articles have tended to garble college data. Remember all that nonsense about "transfer rates" a year or so ago? For the actual data re our two colleges, see below.)
STATE-WIDE, NATION-WIDE:
It does appear that the enrollments trend is state-wide and nation-wide. Two weeks ago, Inside Higher Ed (The Community College Enrollment Boom) reported that “While enrollment has been growing steadily at many two-year institutions, this fall appears likely to set records….”
So Mathur can quit crowing.
But, again, what about IVC?
For up-to-date enrollment figures, go to Headcount. It seems to show IVC up by 10% and Saddleback up by 8%. (The exact figures are 10.4 and 7.9.)
FTES is what matters. (FTES: take the hours of student-instruction and divide by the hours of a full-time student. Many cc students do not take a traditional full-time load; many take less; many take more.) "Enrollments" (headcount) are only an indirect (and irregular) indication of FTES.
For current FTES data, see Preliminary enrollment comparison report. As of yesterday, Saddleback FTES was up 9.3%. IVC FTES was up 15.6%.
That last figure is pretty spectacular.
6 comments:
I'm not sure where IVC is getting that its enrollment increased by so much. Saddleback's eight percent is an increase in head count. If you look at the numbers, IVC's increase in terms of head count is 10 percent. What is in the OC Register was not an apples to apples comparison.
There are a number of contributing factors, not the least of which is the outstanding efforts by the outreach folks over the last 2 years.
Also, high gas prices are causing more of the OCC students from Irvine to switch to IVC.
Good thing we hired all those new faculty!
If one follows these fluctuations over time it becomes evident that there is really no one reason why enrollments fluctuate this way. One issue that is constant is that when the economy slumps and unemployment rises enrollments go up. You can thank the Bush administration's handling of our national economy for our enrollment increase. Why students pick one or another college usually has more to do with class availability and convenience than with any perception of quality education. When Santiago Canyon College opened IVC enrollment dropped and stayed flat for three years. The increase at IVC probably has as much to do with the cost of gas as the quality of faculty. Actually, it's because we really are great.
Okay, enrollments are up - so what?
Jeez 8:42, have you no sense of wonder?
Yes, they are up. But don't you wonder why? It's phenomenal. Like Google's cheese traffic (Why the heck is it so similar every year?).
Anyways, one thing I have noticed is a lot more high school students running about our campus in the evening. And I've always considered IVC's position more ideal for students to get to, it seems like it is in a more densely populated place. I got no real ideas though.
Maybe it's because enrollment has been down at IVC for the past two years, time enough for students to try the other colleges and find out they aren't any more wonderful than IVC, and are further away, resulting in higher costs for gas... as someone already said. So in comparison to the recent dip of the past few years, that's probably why enrollments are up so much.
Post a Comment