Enrollment on the decline

MHCC enrollment and tuition are on the decline, according to college analysts.

The enrollment numbers are represented in SFTE (Student Full Time Equivalents), senior budget analyst Mark Denney said. “That is the best way to look at enrollment, because it adjusts for the fact that a student enrolled in 12 credits per term is not the same as a student taking only one course per term,” Denney said.

In 2010-11, enrollment declined to 10,715.58 SFTE, a 1.3 percent decline. In 2011-12, it declined again, and significantly, to 9,724.79, a 9.25 percent decline.

“That’s a very abrupt decline for one year,” Denney said. “As for this year, although I don’t have the actual figures, we are again declining somewhere in the range of 2 percent” said Denny.

This trend of declining enrollment is relatively new compared to recent history.  As the recession grew, all colleges across Oregon, but community colleges specifically, saw a significant growth in enrollment, as people lost jobs or couldn’t find work after high school. Denney said they came to the community colleges to prepare for a new career.

In 2007-08, state aid was just under 50 percent but dropped to 36 percent by 2009-10.  In that same time, revenue from student tuition went from approximately 29 percent up to 36 percent.  And by 2011-12, state aid was down to around 34 percent and student tuition was almost 45 percent of the total funding for the college.

“For the coming year — it is difficult to say where state funding will be — current projections are that we will receive a bit of a restoration. But that is very difficult to predict, and it is too early in the state’s budget cycle to know either what receipts are looking like at the state level, or what the governor will likely propose to the Legislature in his budget proposal,” said Denney.