Allen Community Colleges enrollment is down 129 students from last year, despite projections of a higher number. The news caused some concern for the board of trustees on Tuesday evening.
Board Chairman Ken McGuffin questioned what went wrong.
”We had an initial rosy enrollment forecast months ago. What happened?” McGuffin asked Cynthia Jacobson, who serves as vice president of student affairs. “Does that have any impact on our funding?”
School president John Masterson replied, “You bet it impacts our funding. When your expenses go up and your revenue goes down, thats not a good sign. But its fairly typical, when you look at reports. There are lots of double-digit decreases statewide. We have a declining high school population statewide. We have kids going straight to work and others going to technical schools.”
Jacobson said enrollment numbers from the second week of August were well ahead of where they were the previous year and that typically more are down the pike. That didnt happen this year.
Tosca Harris, dean of the Iola campus, said numbers are up for its campus.
Jacobson also reported that numbers should increase next semester.
”We are expecting to get 20 new international students next semester,” Jacobson said. “These were kids who could not get their visas in time. They still plan on going to college here.”
The school expected 70 international students before the semester started, but currently has 43.
ACC plans to use charter buses this year for its athletic teams.
The schools activity bus has been sitting in Texas the past two months after it was discovered the bottom was rusted out. It was estimated the bus could be repaired for $90,000, while Masterson said another estimate came in at $50,000.
”I learned a little bit about depreciation,” Masterson said. “I asked if we spent $50,000, how much would the bus be worth? He said about $35,000.”
Masterson reviewed each of the athletic teams schedules and mapped out their trips. Brian Counsil, who is in charge of the schools finances, took those numbers to Crossroad Tours who said transportation would cost about $50,000.
”I was expecting it to be $150,000 because I included overnight stays and everything,” Counsil said. ”We were able to get that down to $40,000.”
Counsil said he then went through the costs of owning a bus for a year. The school spent $28,000 on fuel alone. ACC paid $190,000 for the bus five years ago. Counsil said the school is losing $31,000 per year in depreciation on the bus. Labor costs and maintenance totalled around $20,500 per year as well as $1,500 in insurance.
