Report Hints Enrollment Slump Over

A four-year enrollment slump that has plagued Ventura County’s community colleges--and threatens to strip the three-campus district of $2.1 million in state funding--seems to have ended, according to a preliminary report released Friday.

The report states districtwide enrollment is up about 4.6% over the same period last year. And as of Tuesday, there had been a nearly 55% increase over last semester in the number of students enrolling who have bachelor’s degrees--with Oxnard College more than doubling its number of four-year degree holders.

“I am very pleased,” Philip Westin, chancellor of the Ventura County Community College District, said Friday. “We still have a ways to go, but it appears we are in the process of turning [our enrollment] around.”

College officials credit a much-heralded elimination of a tuition rate of $50 per unit for students with bachelor’s degrees and an aggressive marketing campaign to lure them back. And while registration at all three campuses continues next week, officials are optimistic the figures will continue to climb.

“It’s great,” said Ron Jackson, vice president of student services at Oxnard College. “I knew we were going to do better than in the spring of 1995 and I estimate we will do a little over 300 students in the next week.”

Oxnard College, the district’s smallest college with about 5,200 students last semester, showed the greatest percentage increase. Total enrollment at the college is up nearly 6% over last spring, and the 20-year-old campus has boosted its enrollment of four-year degree holders by more than 165%, to 239 students.

Desperate to increase enrollment, Jackson did not rely solely on the district’s marketing efforts--including a monthlong blitz of cable television commercials--to attract students to Oxnard.

He bombarded the staff members of local schools with letters notifying them of the elimination of the $50 fee, dispatched recruiters to local businesses to preach the value of upgrading their employees’ skills, and stationed Oxnard College counselors at The Esplanade and Centerpoint Mall in Oxnard during the holiday season.

“It was a concentrated effort that brought us these students,” he said. “And I am extremely pleased with the results.”

At Moorpark College, where a more modest 3.8% enrollment increase occurred, officials were less optimistic.

Although encouraged by the 21% increase in the number of four-year degree holders, President Jim Walker said it too early to declare the district’s four-year enrollment slump over.

“It would please me to be able to say that,” he said. “But I think I will be a little more comfortable when I see the figures for next fall.”

Traditionally, more students enroll for the fall semester than in the spring.

John Woolley, vice president of student services at Ventura College, said the increases reflect the improving state of the economy as well as expanded marketing.

“Throughout the state, in the economy and in the public and private sector we have been leveling out,” he said. “Now we are going up.”

Overall enrollment at Ventura College is up 4.8% over last year and the college has posted a nearly 58% increase since last semester in the number of students with bachelor’s degrees.

Since the fall of 1992, enrollment in the district has dropped by about 16%.

The biggest drop occurred in the spring of 1993 when the state raised per-unit tuition for students with four-year degrees from $6 to $50. All students now pay $13 per unit.

The semester the fee went into effect, the district lost 30%, or 500, of its four-year degree holders.

Although college officials have counted on the fee’s elimination to reverse its enrollment decline, Westin has warned that the return of students with university degrees will not boost enrollment to the level needed to maintain the district’s current level of state funding. Currently, the district receives $58.7 million from the state.

“I think clearly there are some students coming back,” Westin said. “But the numbers we need to recoup are larger than simply the BA holders.”

The district has an additional 2 1/2 years to restore enrollment before the state permanently reduces its funding by as much as $2.1 million. That means luring the equivalent of 1,550 full-time students back to the district.

Austerity measures during the early 1990s, which eliminated dozens of classes throughout the district, were also blamed for dwindling enrollment.

But now, with budget reserves at their highest level in five years, the district can pursue several plans--from adding classes and reopening satellite campuses in Camarillo, the Conejo Valley and Ojai--to further boost enrollment, Westin said.

“The first time we could do something about opening additional classes or moving back into out satellite centers would be this summer,” he said. “But I think we are on the right track and I feel good about it.”