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16,661 College-credit Students Get Their Start at Kirkwood

By September 6, 2012January 11th, 2019No Comments

After graduating its second largest class in the college’s 46-year history, the number of students enrolled at Kirkwood Community College for Fall 2012 is down from its record high of two years ago. The official tenth-day measurement for the college is 16,661 students, down 5.7 percent from last year’s enrollment of 17,610.

“Our enrollment numbers climbed so high the last few years because of the nation’s economic downturn,” said Kirkwood Vice President of Enrollment Kristie Fisher. “With our high graduation numbers this spring, it’s clear we continue meeting the needs of our students and our regional workforce as the economy turns itself around.”

A strengthening economy and high graduation rates aren’t the only thing contributing to a smaller number of students enrolling at the state’s fourth-largest college. Policy changes are lowering the number of students, but come with hopes of increasing their success rate.

“As part of our Learner Success Agenda to improve our overall graduation rate, we eliminated the ability to register for a class once it started,” said Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich. “We noticed that students who added a class after the class had started, weren’t as successful as those who were in class on day one. We knew this would mean fewer students, but we’re confident we’ll see a better success rate.”

The college is offering many late-start classes this year. These allow students to start a course later in the semester, but not miss any class time. Many of those classes start throughout the middle of September.

Of the 16,661 students enrolled at Kirkwood this fall, 9,091 take classes at the main campus in Cedar Rapids, 3,076 at the Iowa City Campus and 3,255 are taking advantage of at least one Distance Learning course.

Fall 2012 marks the start to the 47th academic year at Kirkwood. In its founding year of 1966-67, the two-year college then known as “Area Ten” enrolled just 199 students in college-credit programs.