UVSC bucks statewide trend with positive enrollment numbers

The state Board of Education has released enrollment numbers for Utah's public colleges and universities, and while overall the numbers are flat UVSC gained the most students and had the second highest percentage of growth over last fall's numbers.

Enrollment remains flat at Utah colleges
Recruitment to become more competitive as numbers stay steady
(Salt Lake Tribune, October 12 2007)

While this news is no big surprise for UVSC, it is nice to see what numbers other schools are posting. Here are the headcounts for all nine schools:

U of U: 27,685 -2.15%
USU: 21,455 +1.10%
Weber: 17,089 -1.16%
SUU: 6,410 +4.94%
Snow: 3,202 -9.65%
Dixie: 5,209 -2.43%
CEU: 1,799 -3.95%
UVSC: 20,959 +3.44%
SLCC: 23,824 +0.01%

Higher Ed
Total: 127,632 -0.09%

If that number seems a little low for UVSC, who usually boasts of having 24,000 students we can only assume the state is not counting high school students taking in concurrent enrollment classes.

Local big wigs discuss the future of UVSC

This past Monday UVSC hosted a pow-wow with leaders from the state and local government , as well as business leaders and educators from throughout Utah County.


Leaders look at role of UVSC
Identity issues involving school, region discussed
(Deseret Morning News, October 9 2007)

One of the most interesting facts brought up during the meeting was this one:
For instance, Hispanic students are the majority in seven of Provo's 11 elementary schools, said RaDene Hatfield, president-elect of the Provo Council PTA.

A few months back there was an article in the Daily Herald said that all of UVSC's recruitment material was also available in Spanish. There were some in the community who complained that students should be able to speak English before going to college.

More minority students going to college
(Daily Herald, August 4 2007)

Clearly if UVSC is going to continue to meet the needs of the community it will need to reach out to Hispanic students and their parents (for who the Spanish recruitment material was intended for).

Utah college enrollment flat overall

Despite UVSC's positive numbers so far this year Utah overall only saw a meager .8 percent increase in college enrollment over last year's declining figures.

College enrollment shows a decline
(Salt Lake Tribune, September 15 2007)

But the important part of this story is that the Board of Regents anticipate that the state's Higher Ed system will experience an average of 3 percent growth annually over the next 20 years. According to their projections this is just the lull before the storm, and we should see real increase starting in 2013-2014.

So if the state as a whole is experiencing static enrollment right now, while UVSC is still growing, what does that mean for UVU when things really get hopping in a few years? UVU could have the largest student population in the state in just 10 years.

First day of Fall Semester

UVSC's Fall Semester started Wednesday, and despite booming enrollment it looks like the kinks that have plagued the back-to-campus rush have been ironed out. Lines seemed shorter and no major outages for the school's UVLink computer system. All in all a good beginning to the last year as UVSC.

UVSC's final fall semester begins (Daily Herald, August 23 2007)

But the big story here just might be enrollment. Right now the school is running a nearly 7 percent increase compared to the numbers posted at this time last year. Of course the final fall numbers won't be posted for another 3 weeks, so look for that big percentage to drop each day until then. The Pipeline spoke with an administrator on Wednesday who said they are predicting about a 2 percent increase when all is said and done. Compared to most other schools in the state this year that is huge.

The total head count numbers will be helped considerably when the high schools start turning in their concurrent enrollment data at the beginning of September. Concurrent enrollment might he

The other impressive number this year is the Full Time Equivalent, which as of today sits at 15,448. As we all know the FTE calculates the number of students that are taking a full load, and it is the number that actually means something (the one used by the state to calculate funding). In fact the FTE for this year is already 98.6 percent of Fall '05 numbers, with just 93.4 percent of the headcount. That means students are taking more credits. More FTE means more funding, and hopefully more eventual graduates.

In fact, according to the most recent fact book put out by UVSC's Institutional Research office, the number of juniors and seniors has steadily risen over the past 5 years. Thats a sure sign that students are staying put, which might be the reason why headcount and FTE numbers are on the rise.

SLCC president makes student retention a top priority

Salt Lake Community College president Cynthia Bioteau is taking retention into her own hands by calling students personally if they haven't registered for fall classes yet.

Haven't registered for classes yet? You might get a call from SLCC president (Slat Lake Tribune, July 20 2007)

Maybe there is a lesson here for UVSC president Bill Sederburg. He is always moaning about the time-honored Wolverine tradition of waiting till the first day of class to register, and the headaches, network traffic, and long lines this inevitably causes. Perhaps Big Bill should get on the horn and convince procrastinating students to get on the ball.