Versailles, Ky. (Sept. 26, 2008) - Fall enrollment was a major topic of discussion during today's Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) Board of Regents meeting. For the first time in the organization's 10-year history, enrollment did not increase during the fall semester with an estimated 92,175 students compared with 92,828 in 2007.
"This slight drop in enrollment is a direct result of a decline in state appropriations and the Council on Postsecondary Education's decision not to approve our recommended tuition increase," said KCTCS Board of Regents Chair Richard A. Bean. "We can no longer continue to do what was mandated to us in the 1997 Postsecondary Education Improvement Act without appropriate levels of support."
Due to a $13.5 million reduction in state appropriations, KCTCS began the 2008-09 academic year with 240 fewer faculty and staff. KCTCS colleges have absorbed the budget cuts by eliminating academic programs and reducing the number of courses and services offered to students. Specific actions include:
· Elimination of full academic programs on one or more campuses of 10 colleges;
· Enrollment caps in one or more programs at 12 colleges;
· Fewer courses or fewer course sections offered by 14 colleges;
· Raising the minimum number of students required for a class to be offered at 15 colleges;
· Increasing class sizes at nine colleges;
· Reduction in services to students and businesses at 15 colleges;
· Closure of a campus at Gateway Community and Technical College;
· Capping of enrollment at Jefferson Community and Technical College's downtown campus;
· Discontinuation of class offerings at Wayne County High School by Somerset Community College; andElimination of weekend operations of the library at Owensboro Community and
Technical College....
But H-L isn't buying it.
3 comments:
"H-L isn't buying it." Hmmph . . .-this from the same people who just got rid of their education writer.
I’m not ready to accept the KCTCS explanation, either. They need to examine other possibilities.
Here is one: many students coming from Kentucky’s P to 12 school system are inadequately prepared to succeed in postsecondary education. Thanks to better testing and reporting during their high school years, those students know their chances of college success are not very good.
Only a small minority of Kentucky’s students score well enough on the ACT to meet the benchmark scores that signal good odds of college success (you know, those new ACT criterion-based cut scores that you and Ben Oldham try to ignore). Among the 2008 graduates in Kentucky who took the ACT and might have gone on to postsecondary education, only 19 percent met the benchmark scores in all four academic areas tested. Virtually all of that limited number of students would go to four-year universities, not two-year schools.
ACT scores for virtually all the potential community college applicants in 2008 probably indicate these students can expect some pretty tough challenges in any postsecondary school.
In fact, because Kentucky now determines college remedial course requirements based on ACT scores, these students actually knew before high school graduation that they would face the additional costs of remedial courses if they went on to postsecondary education.
Given the facts that more kids are getting better information about their real readiness for college, it may just be that the drop in KCTCS enrollment is due to more kids realizing that they didn’t get an adequate preparation in the P to 12 school system. Perhaps unwilling to face the extra expense of remedial courses, maybe more of these kids are simply making an informed decision not to load up a lot of debt in what at best might be a long-shot gamble at getting a postsecondary diploma or degree.
It’s a serious alternate possibility that all Kentuckians need to discuss, because with our rapidly more technical society, the drop in postsecondary enrollment is not a good thing for anyone in this state.
Financial issues may not even have much to do with the drop in KCTCS enrollment. For another possible explanation for the drop, surf to:
http://bluegrasspolicy-blog.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-on-finding-right-reason-for-kctcs.html
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