Northwest Arkansas Community College reports enrollment dip

BENTONVILLE -- Northwest Arkansas Community College officials point to an improving economy as one of the main reasons enrollment continues to drop.

The college reported 7,181 students enrolled as of Tuesday, a decrease of 127 students, or 1.7 percent, from the same point last spring semester. Tuesday was the 11th day of classes, the day the state uses to compare college and university enrollments from year to year.

Students are taking a total of 63,169 credit hours this semester, a decline of 3 percent from the spring 2015 semester, according to a news release from the college.

Fall semester enrollment was down about 2.5 percent from the previous fall. Both this semester's and last semester's enrollment declines align roughly with what college officials had expected. They developed the 2015-16 budget on the assumption enrollment would decline 3 percent for the entire academic year.

The college's enrollment hit an all-time high of 8,648 in fall 2011, but has been in decline since then. Officials attribute that largely to an improved economy.

"As unemployment has gone down, so has our number of students," said Todd Kitchen, vice president of student services, during a board meeting last month. That is a national trend, he said.

Fifty-two percent of the college's budget comes from tuition and fees, according to Debi Buckley, chief financial officer. Administrators are optimistic the enrollment declines will end soon, she said.

In the meantime, the college is in the middle of developing its budget for the 2016-17 school year.

"(The human resources division) is getting together with individuals in all the divisions and asking, what do you think your personnel needs are," Buckley told the board last month. "We look at how can we reorganize, maybe not refilling that position or adjusting those positions."

As enrollment has declined over the past few years, the college has responded by making reductions in staff, she said.

"We certainly have been doing that incrementally, and we will continue to do that," Buckley said.

Last fall semester, total enrollment in Arkansas' public higher education institutions decreased by 0.9 percent. Four-year schools saw an average enrollment increase of 1.6 percent, but two-year schools saw a decrease of 5.4 percent.

Evelyn Jorgenson, college president, said many people wonder why four-year institutions generally aren't experiencing the enrollment declines that two-year colleges are seeing.

"An awful lot of those institutions are heavily reliant on those 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds who aren't part of the workforce yet," Jorgenson said. "Our average student is 26 years old, so when they have the opportunity to get jobs, they either don't go to college or they take fewer (credit) hours."

Only about 33 percent of the college's students are considered full-time students. The population of high school students in Northwest Arkansas has hit a plateau, so the greatest opportunity for enrollment growth is in the retention of current students, Kitchen said.

With that in mind, the college has created an Office of Student Success, the purpose of which is to work with certain students to keep more of them in school and on course to achieve their goals, Kitchen said.

The college did see a modest increase of 4 percent in new freshmen this spring, with a total of 339 new freshmen compared to 325 students last year.

Another area that continues to grow is the number of high school students enrolled concurrently at the college. There are 808 high school students enrolled at the college this spring compared to 713 enrolled last spring, a 13.3 percent increase.

Eleventh-day enrollment figures reflect only those students taking classes for college credit. The college expects to serve about 6,000 more learners through workforce development and adult-education initiatives during the 2015-16 academic year, according to Steven Hinds, executive director of public relations and marketing.

Enrollment in the certified retail analyst program, now in its 16th year, grew from 136 students last spring to 172 this spring, a 26.5 percent increase, according to the news release. The electrical and plumbing apprenticeship programs also have seen enrollment gains of 75 percent and 45 percent, respectively.

The total enrollment figure and other numbers cited for this spring semester are preliminary, unofficial numbers. Institutions across the state must submit their enrollment reports to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education later this month.

NW News on 02/03/2016