Arkansas colleges have begun to announce fall enrollment totals, mostly showing lower numbers than last fall but with a hint of optimism on higher retention rates.
By and large, Arkansas' public universities and two-year colleges budgeted this year for lower enrollment than the year before. They did so knowing high school graduating classes are shrinking and assuming fewer students would feel financially comfortable paying for college, especially if much of it were virtual courses, during an economically challenging coronavirus pandemic.
Arkansas Tech University, the University of Central Arkansas and Ouachita Baptist University all announced their 11th-day, preliminary enrollment figures last week. For Arkansas Tech and UCA -- Arkansas' third-largest and fourth-largest institutions of higher education -- the numbers were down. But numbers were up for Ouachita Baptist University, a small, private school.
That's, in part, because the university is offering nearly all in-person instruction this fall, President Ben Sells said. Students want the social experience of being on a college campus, and many who attended last year were eager to return, he said.
"One of the reasons you go to a college like Ouachita is you want to live on campus," he said. "You want to go face to face."
That's been a challenge in higher education across the country, as major campuses experience outbreaks of the virus among hundreds of their students. Even OBU has had cases -- 26 total, including five active cases. The university has 3,000 antigen tests available on campus. Antigen tests are less accurate than PCR tests but can currently be processed more rapidly in Arkansas.
The university mostly sends students home who must quarantine, separating them from the campus community.
While national health officials have urged campuses not to send students home, for fear of spreading the virus to new places, Sells said that as a parent he would want his child at home to quarantine, even if that meant risking illness himself.
The Arkadelphia university tallied 1,704 students this fall, up 4% from 1,633 last fall and the highest head count since 2000. But the university's incoming freshman class was actually down from last year, 381 compared with 433.
Enrollment still rose because of trends in higher education reflected in OBU's numbers: More graduate students enrolling because of an increase in graduate programs (40 more students) and more high school students taking courses on the side at the university (41 more students). The university also has improved its retention rate and communicated with students more than ever before this summer. That helped them process more requests for financial-aid status changes and know which students needed financial assistance during the pandemic, Sells said.
OBU reported a freshman-to-sophomore retention rate of about 4 of every 5 students, an increase from previous years. At UCA, the retention rate was also about 4 of every 5 students, and the the freshman-to-sophomore retention rate was higher than last year for underrepresented students.
Arkansas universities have focused on improving retention rates as they, on average, lag behind the national retention rate and as the pool of potential college newcomers shrinks.
Enrollment otherwise dropped at UCA, from 10,869 last fall to 10,335. That's a drop of 4.9%, or about what the Conway university budgeted for (a 5% drop). But the number of credit hours students are taking dropped only 3.9%, the university reported.
At Arkansas Tech, enrollment was 10,866 students, down from 11,829 last fall -- an 8.1% drop. The Russellville university is comprised of about a quarter high school students concurrently enrolled, who often don't pay or don't pay as much to take university courses. Enrollment was down for both those high schools students and the non-high school undergraduate students and graduate students.
The Arkansas Division of Higher Education has asked the state's colleges and universities to submit their enrollment totals this week. Colleges often count both the total number of students and the number of full-time equivalent students, with the full-time equivalent students figure being more reflective of the number of credit hours students are taking and paying for than the number of students pursuing an education there. The division reports the total number of students.