Bucking the trend? Summer enrollment at Mat-Su College climbs

Summer enrollment at Mat-Su College brought some good news for Talis Colberg.

Colberg, director at the college, had been expecting the student count to crash because the campus is still closed, and all summer classes are to be on-line.

Instead, enrollment was up. The actual numbers aren’t big – 390 signed up for classes compared with 335 for summer school 2019, but the sharp uptick could mean college students are adapting faster to virtual education than many expected.

“It was a pleasant surprise. Up until a week before (summer) classes started we expected it to be down,” Colberg said in an email.

What’s also of note is that the classes spanned a variety or general courses, from art appreciation and Alaska Native studies to mathematics, which meant there isn’t a particular hot topic driving interest in one or two subjects.

Typical fall and spring enrollment at Mat-Su ranges between 1,200 and 1,400. The campus offers a two-year schedule with 130 to 150 Associate Degrees awarded each year on average.

Mat-Su is considered a “feeder” campus to the University of Alaska Anchorage, of which it is a part. Most students go on to complete four-year degrees at UAA or other institutions.

However, based on the early enrollment for fall semester to date Mat-Su is looking to be down in its numbers. In fact, only 480 have enrolled for fall so far compared with 751 at this time last year, reflecting a 36 percent decline.

But given the uncertainties the university is facing amid the COVID-19 virus problems it’s no surprise that many would-be students are holding off on their decisions, university president Jim Johnsen said in a briefing to reporters.

That’s particularly true at commuter campuses like UAA , and at Mat-Su. At campuses that are more residential where students must reserve dorm rooms in advance the numbers are better.

Students are also waiting to see how the university will be reopened this fall and how many classes will be taught in person and how many on-line.

The university is now engaged in planning for reopening, but it is being done carefully. “A couple weeks back I approved our multiphase framework for renewing on-site operations,” Johnsen told Board of Regents in a report June 4.

UAA Chancellor Cathy Sandeen told the university’s regents that she expects an improvement too.

“We are feeling confident that we’ll be just shy of a 10 percent decline come fall opening for the Anchorage campus,” compared with a 21 percent drop in the early enrollment numbers, Sandeen told the regents.

“Just in the last 30 days, we’ve seen a 28 percent improvement in fall headcount,” meaning that a month ago, at the height of the COVID-19 problems, the numbers looked much worse.

Another encouraging signal is that, “spring-to-fall persistence of continuing students is now only behind by two percentage points,” from the same metric last year at this time. “As we share more details about fall with our continuing students, they’re registering,” Sandeen told the regents.

Johnsen said a big unknown is how students will react if most or many classes are on-line instead of held physically in classrooms on campus. This will all depend on the course of COVID-19, the president said.

“Each of the universities is developing its own operational plan for resuming on-site operations specific to its local conditions and ability to manage risk. On Monday, I formally approved movement from Phase A to Phase B, gradually resuming on-site operations,” he said.

“To enable us to move in a smart and safe way from phase to phase—which requires an expert assessment of our risks and our capacity to mitigate those risks—we have engaged retired CDC medical expert Dr. Tom Hennessy in Anchorage to advise us,” Johnsen said.

The university’s resumption of on-site operations will lag the state (in reopening), Johnsen said. “That’s because our university has a conjunction of four major risk factors: extensive travel by members of our community, congregate housing, mass gatherings, and a large portion of our population that can be asymptomatic,” Johnsen said.

“Any one of those risks is significant; all four require us to take extra care as we resume on-site operations,” he said.

The president said he expects increased in-person operations on campuses as well as many on-line options, “a hybrid if you will,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we will be in operation; research will be happening, classes will be taught, students will be learning,” Johnsen said.