The University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne said fall enrollment increased to 2,366 students.
Stephanie Fox poured over a textbook near the clock tower overlooking Mirror Lake just outside the John Paul II Center at the University of Saint Francis, making serious use of unscheduled time to get a start on the evening’s homework.
“It’s a beautiful university. I’ve enjoyed my time here so far, and can already tell its going to be a great experience,” she said.
Fox, a freshman who received USF’s Tom Jehl Lifetime Sports Academy Scholarship, said the university’s “strong nursing program really drew me in, along with the Franciscan values that the university instills in its learning plans.”
The New Haven High School graduate said the availability of assistance also was a key consideration in her decision to study at Saint Francis.
And she wasn’t alone among northeast Indiana students. Officials at Saint Francis and a number of other universities in the area say the economics of obtaining an education has taken on growing importance in college selection and has had an impact on fall enrollment figures.
Restrictions added this summer to federal financial-aid programs for college students and the need for some students to return to the workplace reduced enrollments at Ivy Tech Community College-Northeast and at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, officials at those schools said.
“Students who are not as successful are going to have less time to maintain (financial-aid) eligibility. I know we distributed less financial aid this fall than we did last fall,” said Mark Franke, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management at IPFW. “The tracking of a student’s academic progress is stricter now; students have less time to complete a degree that is tracked semester by semester.”
The economic recovery affected enrollment because “when the economy looks like it’s going to be worse, enrollment goes up partly because people have time or are worried about their futures and want to have a better set of credentials,” Franke said.
Andrew Welch, executive director for marketing and communications at Ivy Tech-Northeast, said 17,000 jobs were added to nine northeast Indiana counties from June 2009 to this June, and more than 6,250 of those jobs were added during the last 12 months of that period.
Indiana Department of Workforce Development data showed during the three-year period unemployment rates also fell by at least three percentage points and by as much as six percentage points in the area, depending on the county, he said.
“As the job market improves, individuals tend to get themselves back into the market,” Welch said.
Federal financial-aid program changes and the need to leave full-time studies for full-time work contributed to enrollment declines of 4 percent, to 13,770 students, at IPFW, and 13 percent, to 10,150 students, at Ivy Tech-Northeast.
Stricter admission standards also were a factor in the enrollment decline at IPFW, which now refers more high-school students applying there — including several hundred this year — to Ivy Tech-Northeast.
“For some students, it’s better to start in a community college environment than immediately jump into a baccalaureate environment,” Franke said. “They can transfer even after one semester (to IPFW) if they’ve done well.”
At the University of Saint Francis, affordable new online adult learning options have become available, and more students are getting help through generous financial aid packages.
“A new policy to provide financial aid to 100 percent of first-time, full-time undergraduate applicants attracted a higher number of direct out of high school students,” Saint Francis said in a prepared statement.
Undergraduate tuition averages $9,814 annually for full-time students after aid from the federal, state and university levels is taken into account, and “it surprises a lot of people that a private institution with the smaller class sizes could be so affordable,” said Trois Hart, associate vice president for marketing.
The university plans to award $13.5 million in institutional aid this year. Its fall enrollment grew 1 percent, to 2,366 students, from a year earlier, and 35 of its students are attending its new Virtual Campus, which offers online courses in an eight-week accelerated format. Virtual Campus students work toward a bachelor of science in nursing or master of business administration degree, with the entire program completed in 12 months.
At Huntington University and Grace College & Seminary in Winona Lake, officials believe enrollment has started to benefit from initiatives launched in recent years that could reduce student costs.
Huntington had 1,009 students last year and was expecting to see a fall enrollment increase of 1 percent. Four years ago, it started a program to help reimburse student-loan payments following graduation in cases where students are unable to find employment paying $36,000 a year or more.
A foundation reimburses the loan payments in the full amount for graduates making less than $20,000 a year, “and as income increases to $36,000, the loan payment (reimbursement) is reduced proportionately,” said Ashley Smith, associate director for media relations.
Grace has seen its fall enrollment rise 15 percent to 346 students, following an 18-percent enrollment increase a year ago. Helping students get through college more quickly has contributed to the increases, said spokesman David Grout. The university has obtained additional temporary student housing and is building a new dormitory to accommodate the growth.
“Three years ago, we went back to the drawing board of higher education and said people want to save money and … we want to be on the front end of that,” he explained. “We engineered a three-year degree for every program. We found that over 50 percent of our incoming freshmen are interested in it or are on that track, so it’s really resonated.”
Offering new programs, such as a master of science in regulatory and clinical affairs as well as new engineering programs through a partnership with Trine University, also has contributed to enrollment growth at Grace, he said.
In a statement, Trine said fall enrollment at its main campus in Angola and its School of Professional Studies was nearly 2,500 students, which was a record. The school also saw 44-percent growth in its Middle College program, which offers dual credit to high-school students.
Attracting 64 students to the College of Pharmacy it just opened in Fort Wayne contributed to a 2-percent enrollment increase for Manchester University.
The North Manchester-based university saw an enrollment last year of 1,320 students, and “we anticipate about 1,350 students when our numbers are finalized,” Dave McFadden, executive vice president and dean for the College of Pharmacy, said in a statement.
Indiana Tech was expecting a 10-percent enrollment increase, but did not have exact figures as of Business Weekly’s deadline.
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