The fall semester at Pratt Community College is a record breaker.
As of Monday, Aug. 23, students have enrolled in 15,050 credit hours, the head count is 1,356 students and the enrollment is 1,003 Full Time Equivalent. All three are record-breaking numbers for PCC, said PCC President William Wojciechowski.
“This is the highest enrollment in the 22 years I have been here,” Wojciechowski said.
When Wojciechowski started at PCC the FTE was 702. It takes 30 credit hours to qualify for one FTE and the number of FTE is critical to the college because that is what the state bases its aid on for each college or university.
The state gives PCC $3,000 for each FTE so the big enrollment numbers are good news for PCC, Wojciechowski said.
“It’s very important to have high enrollment numbers. Our funding is enrollment driven,” Wojciechowski said.
The credit hours are broken into three groups: 11,200 on campus, 2,100 on-line and 1,800 outreach hours not on-line.
“Our on-line programs are doing quite well. On-line and outreach account for 25 percent of our enrollment and those are programs that continue to grow,” Wojciechowski said.
Now the big challenge is retention. It doesn’t make sense to get the students to PCC if they don’t stay.
The PCC staff worked hard recruiting and enrolling students. Waiting times were shortened with new innovations resulting in very few dissatisfied students during a very heavy enrollment.
“The whole enrollment period went smoothly,” Wojciechowski said. “Our folks were very responsive. I can’t say enough about our wonderful staff. They are top administrative folks.”
The enrollment growth comes from several areas. The nursing program currently has 210 students enrolled on site, at remote sites and in the on-line program. A later starting on-line class will add an additional 40 students for a total of 250, the biggest enrollment in the nursing program.
The new soccer program has brought 24 men and 15 women to campus and increased the number of foreign students on campus by nine with players on the men’s team with six from Scotland, two from England and one from Zambia. The additions have brought the number of foreign students to 30 and that is up from the usual 20 to 23 international students.
“The diversity of students really adds another dimension to our campus,” Wojciechowski said.
The wrestling team has had a surprising number of walk-ons this year and the cheer and dance program have also shown increases. Those three programs have helped increase enrollment. The Electric Power Technology program has also shown growth.
