PIERCE COLLEGE : Fall Enrollment Down From 1991

Applications for the fall semester at Pierce College dropped 10% and figures show an approximate 3% decrease in enrollment compared to last year, campus admissions and records officials reported.

The 19,038 student enrollment figure is based on a first census taken on Sept. 14 and is only preliminary information, said Shelley Gerstl, assistant dean of admissions and records.

Nevertheless, this is the first time in three years that the first census showed a lower enrollment figure than the previous year, Gerstl said.

Enrollment was down 4.3% in 1989 compared to the previous year. But since then, enrollment at Pierce increased 6.1% during 1990 and 1991.

Gerstl attributed this year’s decrease in enrollment to several factors, including the earlier start of the fall semester.

“Traditionally, we’ve started later than CSUN,” she said. “After CSUN starts, we usually get a surge of applicants who are CSUN students and couldn’t get the classes they wanted, so they come here. But we started a week before CSUN this year.”

At Pierce, there were 12,489 applications received this fall in comparison to the 13,756 received last fall.

Gerstl said other contributing factors to the decrease was the abundance of information in the newspapers regarding the state’s budget and the possibility of community college enrollment fees increasing up to $20 per unit.

Although the state raised community college fees only half that amount effective in the spring, Gerstl said, “I’m sure some people will feel that they can no longer afford the fee.”

Because of this, Gerstl said she expects another slight decrease in enrollment next spring.