NWACC’s fall enrollment up fractionally over last year

NorthWest Arkansas Community College enrolled 7,973 students for the fall 2016 semester, an increase of 11 students, or 0.14%, from fall 2015 figures, NWACC officials announced.

Official eleventh-day enrollment numbers provided to the state Department of Higher Education in mid-October will not include students who may be auditing a class or who are enrolled in “late start” classes that begin after the traditional 16-week term begins.

The college reports students are taking a combined 70,947 credit hours, an increase of 873 credit hours compared to the year-ago period.

NWACC President Dr. Evelyn Jorgenson said the college is working to attract, recruit, serve and retain more students and the administration is pleased to see the growth, no matter how small given the college budgeted for a 3% enrollment decrease.

NWACC’s freshman class grew 1% to 1,496 students, according to the preliminary count.

“College leadership chose to budget conservatively when planning for the 2016-17 academic year,” said Steven Hinds, executive director of public relations and marketing.  “We are excited that enrollment beat our projections and that more students see the benefit of NWACC.”

NWACC continues to expand its distance learning opportunities offering 302 online classes this semester., up from 273 classes offered a year ago. The number of students taking advantage of online courses grew by 7.5% with 3,113 students taking at least one online class this semester. A year ago that number was 2,896.