With a record graduating class in Spring 2011, the number of students enrolled at Kirkwood Community College for Fall 2011 is down slightly from last year. The official tenth-day measurement for the college is 17,610 students, down 4.8 percent from last year’s record-high enrollment of 18,456.
“Our enrollment numbers climbed so high the last two years because of the nation’s economic downturn,” said Kirkwood Vice President of Enrollment Kristie Fisher. “A large number of adults came to us looking for new career training. Now we’re happy to say that many of them have re-entered the workforce with a degree in hand, strengthening our local economy.”
Of the 17,610 students enrolled at Kirkwood this fall, 9,943 take classes at the main campus in Cedar Rapids, 3,403 in Iowa City and 3,513 are taking advantage of the Distance Learning courses. 622 students are working toward completing one of Kirkwood’s online degrees. That’s up more than 330 percent from fall 2009.
“As part of Kirkwood’s new Learner Success Agenda, we are providing educational delivery when, where and how our students need it,” said Kirkwood President Mick Starcevich. “We continue to see this in our increase in enrollment for our Distance Learning courses and in the popularity of our county centers, bringing education to our students.”
The most popular programs at Kirkwood are Liberal Arts, Nursing, Education Careers, Management, Business Administration, Law Enforcement and Culinary Arts. The programs that saw the most growth from last fall are Computer Support Specialist and Culinary Arts.
Fall 2011 marks the start to the 46th 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.