Enrollment in South Dakota public colleges is steady this fall according to the latest numbers from the Board of Regents.
Executive Director Jack Warner says the total headcount from the six universities increased less than one percent from last fall to this semester to 36,532. He says the Board of Regents is reasonably pleased enrollment didn’t drop.
"The numbers of high school graduates in the Midwest – so think of our surrounding states of Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa and so on – are seeing some declines and will see declines until about 2018. So the fact that we’re maintaining reasonably level enrollments in the face declines in our region I think is an important trend for us," Warner says.
Warner says South Dakota is seeing less of a decline in the number of high school seniors. He says more people are moving to the state, which helps ease the population change. Warner notes that affordability is a factor in enrollment, because higher education is a financial investment.
Warner says the recovering economy plays a role in another number: the equivalent of full-time university students. The Board of Regents considers the total credits students are taking and divides the number by undergraduate and graduate students. That comes to more than 26,736 students in the Regents system. Warner says that number is 10,000 below the overall enrollment because so many students take class on a part-time schedule.
"This is common when a state comes out of a recession, and we’ve been coming out now for a few years. As students find employment, they tend to lighten up their course loads sometimes to accommodate that employment opportunity," Warner says.
Warner says the result of the full-time equivalent calculation dropped less than half of one percent from last fall, so that enrollment number is effectively stable.