Student numbers at Evangel, Drury and Missouri State universities and Ozarks Technical Community College show that more people are pursuing higher education, and school officials cite a competitive job market as a factor for enrollment growth.
“A lot of people are trying to be more competitive in the lean economic times,” said Barbara Weathers, director of outreach activities in Drury’s College of Graduate and Continuing Studies.
“Whenever they’re coming back to school, they are making sure that they have the degrees needed so they can continue to keep the job they have or to be more marketable in the future, she added.”
While Drury won’t post its official fall enrollment until Sept. 27, early data shows enrollment at 5,480.
Evangel’s total fall enrollment is a record 2,072 students, eclipsing the 2,021 enrolled in 2005.
OTC has 13,907 students enrolled this fall, nearly an 8 percent increase from fall 2009. And Missouri State University’s total fall enrollment is at 20,949, up by 107 students from fall 2009.
For all the schools, officials attribute the increases to relevant course offerings, marketing and outreach, and flexible learning opportunities.
On pace with market needs
To keep pace with growing use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, Drury’s graduate communications program now offers a social media certification program to anyone who has an undergraduate degree.
Weathers said that’s just one example of how Drury researches and tailors its programs to meet marketplace needs.
The school also has added a Master of Education in Special Education and has altered its Master of Arts in Teaching to prepare more students to teach middle school math and science, though they can still choose to teach other subjects. Both programs include certification so that the graduates are ready to immediately enter the work force, Weathers said.
“We want to offer people what they need now to succeed.” Weathers said. “There are so many new technologies and new degrees (and) we try to research and develop those so that we can make sure we are teaching people what they really need to know.”
OTC’s health care degrees have drawn strong student interest, said Joel Doepker, director of communications and marketing. He noted that the school’s nursing and dental programs in particular have grown, due to high demand for health care professionals. This fall, Missouri State University added a bachelor’s degree in facility management in its technology and construction management program. That addition was fueled, in part, by the sophisticated nature of new buildings as well as guidance from industry professionals who pinpointed the need for the specialized training.
Recruit and retain
In addition to an overall enrollment record, the number of graduate students at Evangel has been rising the last few years, said Andy Denton, vice president for enrolment management. Since 2007, graduate enrollment is up 145 percent to 301 graduate students enrolled this year. Denton attributes Evangel’s growth to marketing and recruitment efforts, including the formation in 2007 of an enrollment management department.
“Those first couple of years were a lot of hard work. The last two years we’ve been able to see the results of all that work – not only the hard work of the enrollment management staff, but it’s also a great partnership with all our faculty and staff for our recruitment and retention activities,” Denton said. “It really takes the entire campus to be able to both recruit and retain our students.”
Denton noted, too, that in 2008, Evangel created the office of retention, which is directed by Becky Spain. When a faculty or staff member identifies a student whose performance is hampered by challenges, Spain is asked to analyze the situation and find ways to help.
“Prior to this office of retention there wasn’t really a central place where concerns could be sent and then a plan could be developed to see how we could help the student,” Denton said.
At MSU, the school posted a record retention rate of 76 percent between fall 2008 and fall 2009, and efforts to keep students on the rolls are ongoing, said Don Simpson, associate vice president for enrollment management. The retention rate for the current semester is not yet available, he said.
“Anything that we do in terms of the quality of teaching in the classroom to the types of programs we provide through student activities, through the residence halls, through the health center … is going to factor into retention,” he said.
The flexibility factor
Simpson said MSU also is looking at transfer students in terms of overall enrollment and retention.
He recently met with MSU department leaders to talk about revising and enhancing transfer guidelines to streamline the transition for community college students who earn their associate’s degrees at schools such as OTC and want to continue their educations at MSU.
At OTC, online course offerings – which allow students to take courses outside the campus classroom – helped spur enrollment, spokesman Doepker said, noting that more than 4,500 OTC students are taking at least one online course and about 1,700 are only taking online classes. OTC also has classes that start as early as 5 a.m. and as late as 10:30 p.m. to accommodate student schedules, he said.
At MSU, approximately 2,800 students are taking one or more courses online this semester.
“There is a lot of focus right now not necessarily as much on getting more students but getting more people to graduate,” Simpson said. “It goes back to … what can we do and what programs do we put in place (to) allow these students to graduate on a timely basis.”
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