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.
