The COVID-19 pandemic affected student life in a myriad of ways, including the amount of LCC students enrolled at LCC. The year 2020 saw a lot of students having to prioritize and community college classes were often dropped for other things. However, Winter 2023 has shown an increase in enrollment over the last few years
According to Patrick Blaine, who oversees institutional research at LCC, enrollment is up by 5% compared to Winter 2022. Returning students and new students are both up by 15%. According to Blaine, hard numbers are difficult to find because changes in registration happen by the second.
LCC has seen an increase in students who didn’t return in the Fall but decided to come back this Winter. Total student enrollment currently sits at 5,500. That doesn’t include College Now students, which are high schoolers enrolled in college courses.
President Bulger announced three priorities when she came to LCC, enrollment being one of them. Blaine stated that the committees dedicated to enrollment have made changes to orientation, advising models and LCC software. One updated software is EAB Navigate, a “holistic advising system that helps identify students who might need additional help” according to Blaine. EAB analyzes and identifies at-risk students and creates a system to reach out so they don’t fall behind.
LCC also participated in a pilot program in the writing and literature department. Cathy Thomas, an LCC institutional researcher, called this an “umbrella of enrollment efforts.” The writing department faculty worked together to reach out to students. They assisted in encouraging students to register for winter term, increased communication with students and faculty, and provided updates on how classes are generally doing. According to Thomas and Blaine the program was very successful and showed a direct impact on student success.
Blaine also discussed how they are using social media outreach to find students who left LCC and encourage them to come back. They are using a software called Motimatic that sends targeted ads to students. Blaine stated that this has been successful in bringing students back.
“The collective efforts and changes, the hard work everyone’s putting in. Anyone who interacts with students has been working hard. The collective effort appears to be paying off. We will know in the Spring if the trend continues.” Blaine’s optimism over the initial efforts were obvious. “The thing I keep trying to stress is there’s no one single person or group, we’ve all been working hard. A large collective effort by a lot of people who really care.”
