Although enrollment numbers dropped at Ohio University and its branch campuses this year compared to last year, administrators cite different potential reasons for the decrease.
Associate Vice President of Regional Higher Education Stephen Flaherty said there are numerous possible causes for the decrease in branch enrollment, but the typical reasons are financial.
He said the reasons could be a combination of the economy, tuition increases and students taking a break from school to find a job.
It is not only tuition increases that have staunched enrollment numbers. The fact that Ohio has lost support for its higher education causes more problems for students who need financial aid, said Pat Fox, enrollment manager at OU's Lancaster campus.
OU Lancaster dropped from 1,514 students in 2003 to 1,464 students in 2004.
Even though enrollment numbers fell at branch campuses, these decreases came after a period of significant growth, Flaherty said.
A few of our campuses have had extraordinary growth
such as Pickerington (a center at Lancaster) Zanesville and Chillicothe and when things grow that much they don't keep growing
they plateau after a while
he said, adding that Zanesville increased by 400 students in the past five years. It decreased by 81 students from 2003 to 2004.
Kim Keffer, director of admissions at OU Southern, said full-time student enrollment did not decrease at OU's Southern campus, but enrollment decreased in its special interest classes, such as leadership and time-management workshops, mainly because faculty and administrators do not have the resources or availability to offer as many classes.
Most students in the class are adults with children and need to schedule when their children are in school, but professors need to teach their regular classes during that time and cannot schedule special interest courses, she said.
Douglas Hennig, coordinator of enrollment services at OU Chillicothe, which only dropped five students, said lay-offs and plant closings make it harder for school to be an option for working adults. Also, because students of all ages attend regional campuses, it is difficult to target the needs of a specific age group, he said.
Hennig said OU Chillicothe has a program in the works to attract more students. The campus will start Student Orientation, Advising and Registration (SOAR) Dec. 15, which gives students an opportunity to have their questions answered before the beginning of the term.
Other campuses have different strategies for increasing enrollment. Dean of OU's Eastern campus Paul Bibbin, said he cannot pinpoint why the campus had the largest drop in student enrollment -a 13.5 percent decrease -but he said the campus is adjusting its marketing campaign to prevent this drop from happening next year.
Bibbins said the campus hopes to fulfill its goal of raising enrollment for the 2005-06 school year by advertising more in newspapers and television and hosting recruitment activities each quarter.
Monica Jones, director of student services for the Zanesville campus, said admission numbers are not what campuses should be trying to increase -retention is most important. The Zanesville campus saw its first drop this year after growing 60 percent during the past five years.
Retention is truly the barometer of the measure of how successful we are
Jones said. We are looking to find the optimal number
right now we have more than 1
600
and maybe that's the optimal number
or maybe it's 1
800. But it's not enough getting kids to go to college
