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Enrollment numbers become more clear
State requirements create confusing figures
The Advocate
Nancy Szofran, MHCC vice president of research, planning and institutional effectiveness, said Wednesday she “feels really comfortable” saying enrollment will be up from last year, at least for fall term.
In the Sept. 21 Advocate, Szofran said college enrollment had not increased from last year, but both Szofran and Cassie McVeety, the new vice president of the Office of College Advancement, now agree that projections show otherwise.
“There are several different ways to look at the enrollment numbers, and despite the conflicts, all of them are right,” said Szofran Wednesday.
“After the first four weeks of the term, we’ll have solid data that we have to send to the state, but there are a lot of variables before and even after that point.”
Szofran said there are three categories that are state-regulated and must be measured, according to the state, in order to gain reimbursement dollars from the government.
The first and second are headcount, which are counted as both duplicated and unduplicated. Unduplicated headcount is the number of students enrolled at MHCC, while duplicated headcount is related to face-to-face interactions between the student and the teacher, Szofran said.
“If one student is enrolled in one class, and another student is enrolled in two classes, the duplicated headcount total would be three, because that second student is showing up face-to-face for classes multiple times with instructors,” said Szofran.
Szofran said there was an unduplicated headcount of 31,338 last year as an annual number. If the same students were counted as a duplicated headcount, the number would be much larger according to how many classes those students were taking, Szofran said.
The third is Student Full-Time Equivalent (STFE), which, according to Szofran, is a “calculated field.”
“A divisor was created to equalize enrollment between all community colleges,” Szofran said. “For each full-time student, we get reimbursed by the state to cover varying instructional costs.”
Szofran said the formula is the number of contact hours per term, multiplied by the number of students in a class, divided by 510. The formula was created by the state, Szofran said, and must be used in order for the college to get reimbursement from the state.
As of Sept. 29, MHCC was at 90 percent STFE enrollment of the end of last fall term’s total. However, Szofran and McVeety believe the number of STFE students will be higher by the end of fall term ’09 than at the end of fall term ’08, in part due to batch numbers.
“Batch numbers are completed at the end of the term, and in the past this has made a change as big as 500-700 students,” Szofran said. “These are the types of variables you can’t statistically account for, but you know there is something going on with the numbers. Because all of the students can drop or add at any time early on, it’s tough to peg.”
McVeety said she uses Szofran’s data as a “snapshot” of where the college stands at the moment.
“When I reported the numbers, I used Nancy’s numbers, but did so day-to-day according to last year and this year,” McVeety said. “Instead of relating these enrollment numbers to the end of the term, I did so according to where we were at the same time last year.”
As of Sept. 21, 2009, total STFE was 15 percent higher than it was Sept. 22, 2008.
“These numbers will always change, though, even after the fourth week,” said McVeety.
“But by that time we’ll have a much stronger grasp on exactly where we can say we are, numbers-wise.”
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