Enrollment is down slightly this fall at Allen Community College, trustees were told Tuesday.
Students are enrolled in a combined 14,667 hours for the fall semester, a 2.7% drop from 2024, reported Cami Keitel, ACC’s vice president for student affairs.
In terms of headcount, the 1,849 students is down 1.44% from last year, but still up about 1.5% from 2023.
That means that even with more students on campus, they are enrolling in fewer hours.
Keitel said she is huddling with ACC officials to figure out the whys and hows to get students to maximize the number of classes they attend.
She also noted that in order to boost in-person enrollment, the college will need to increase its housing stock because the existing residence halls are filled to capacity.
Jacob Reichard, Allen’s director of institutional effectiveness and research, pointed out that school districts throughout southeast Kansas are reporting lower enrollments as well, meaning there are fewer prospective students to lure Allen’s way.
Additionally, Keitel pointed to four-year universities that have begun placing a higher emphasis on attracting online students by offering classes at much lower prices than they charge traditional students.
“We’re going to see more and more competition in those areas,” Keitel noted. Maintaining strong relationships with school districts will be key to meeting that challenge, she said.
The other emphasis will be to seek out non-traditional students.
“We’ve got to really identify some different populations and strategies to help bridge those gaps,” she said.
SPEAKING OF student housing, Matthew Gleason, vice president for finance and operations, has begun meeting with Ryan Sigg, physical plant operations director, to place priorities on maintenance projects for Winter and Horton Halls.
A recent facilities study pointed to millions of dollars of needed upgrades for both residence halls, a figure so high that it has trustees instead looking at replacing them with a new facility.
But those facilities will still need some upkeep in the interim, Gleason noted.
“We’re looking at how to fund those going forward,” Gleason said.
Initial inquiries to architectural firms about a new student housing complex has received a wide array of potential building projects, he said.
