Despite a lower headcount for the fall semester, National Park College has seen 19 percent growth in its new students.
The college reported in its official fall enrollment Tuesday increases in summer graduates, new students, concurrent credit, National Park Technology Center, Adult Education and workforce training enrollments.
As of the 11th-day census, the college reported 2,022 degree-seeking students, a decrease from 2,219 last year. Preliminary numbers show that full-time equivalent for college students are down slightly, from 1,899 last year to 1,792 currently. Total semester credit hours are also down, from 28,485 to 26,884, according to a news release.
Wade Derden, vice president for academic affairs, said that decrease is in "degree-seeking" students only, which he said is a result of the college making changes to streamline processes.
"What we've had is an increase in graduation, increase in graduates," he said. "You think of a pipeline where you have all these students in that. We've increased the number of graduates. Our retention rate, which is fall-to-fall retention, is about the same.
"Our new student body is up. That means that we moved more students out of that pipe. So, we have a larger percentage of students that are transferring, we have a larger number of students that have graduated, and our headcount is down as a result."
Other factors that have contributed to this are the College Complete America's "15 to Finish" initiative which NPC participates in and the Guided Pathways Initiative.
"Students on average are taking more hours," Derden said. "I don't know the exact numbers, but I know that just a few years ago the average student was taking about 10.5 credit hours a semester and now they're taking over 11 credit hours a semester. Now that's average because we have part-time and full-time students, but that's a significant increase in the number of hours students are taking and the result is they're completing on time or at least quicker."
The Guided Pathways Initiative, he said, is through the American Association of Community Colleges and creates alternate degree plans published for students that are "very clear" on what to take each course.
"We do it in a way that if you take (courses) in this order, if you're a part-time student, take them in this order that way you don't get hung up with pre-reqs and co-reqs and things and get out of sequence and have to spend another semester," he said.
Derden said the economy has enrollment decreasing across the state for community colleges.
"When we look at the numbers statewide, you'll see that most of the community colleges are going to be down in headcount," he said. "Whenever the economy is great, community college enrollment goes down. I don't think we're worried about this.
"We're doing things right. We're getting students in and we're getting students out quicker."
As for growth throughout the college's programs, the number of incoming freshmen has increased 19 percent with 670 new students starting classes last month compared to 563 last year. Seventy-six percent of that class are traditional. Students also represent 21 counties across the state.
"We have a lot of students from Garland County, of course, but we've also seen an increase in students from out of county, some of the other counties," he said. "That's good. I think that means our brand it getting out there."
Even with changes in recent years to concurrent credit requirements, concurrent enrollment is up this year among high school students in the area.
"I just think the high schools are taking advantage of that opportunity," Derden said. "We did have a couple of decreases in concurrent enrollment in the last couple of years because our accrediting agency changed the credentialing requirements for faculty. So that meant fewer high school faculty could teach concurrently for us, but that's started to level out now.
"And we have some of the local high schools are also bringing students to our campus and those still count as concurrent enrollment students even though they are sitting in a college classroom taking classes, or they are taking classes online. I think we're starting to sort of adjust to those changes and there are fewer high school faculty I think teaching concurrently in the area. But we're still seeing an increase."
In addition, National Park Technology Center enrollment is up nearly 14 percent from 595 to 677. Adult Education enrollment has increased from 416 last year at this time to 477 since July 1, a 14.7 percent increase, and Community and Corporate Training programs have served 584 students and logged 15,322 contact hours since July 1 compared to 646 students and 12,633 contact hours at this time last year.
Summer also saw a 77 percent increase in graduates which Derden attributes to the reinstatement of Summer Pell Grants. That, he said, has probably made an impact on the fall enrollment numbers as students who typically would have waited to graduate in the fall finished their degrees during the summer session.
"But again, that's not something to frown about," he said. "We want them to graduate. That's our job."
Local on 09/15/2018