Enrollment Meltdown
Brianna Martinez and Kevin Bonneville
The first week of the fall semester
brought tension and confusion to students
and faculty during the registration process.Several thousand students were
dropped from their classes due to nonpayment.
When asked how many students
were affected, Barbara Boros, associate
dean and registrar, said she did not have
those exact numbers.
However, in an e-mail sent out on Aug.
21, Boros indicated that on Monday, Aug.
18, 759 students were dropped, 518 on
Aug. 19, and 516 on Aug. 20.
For those three days, 1,793 students
were purged. Since that time, a total of
5,490 have been dropped from a course.
As for the number of classes that were
canceled, a total of 1,443 out of 5,212
courses were dropped during the beginning
of the fall semester, which equaled
nearly 28 percent of all classes. That number is up more than three percent from thesame time last fall.
Along with purging students for nonpayment,
MCC’s enrollment numbers
have been slightly down and continues to
take a steady dip over recent years.
As of Sept. 8, total enrollment for the
college was down 4.3 percent, down 19.2
percent during the night period, but up 3.3
percent for day courses.
Some of the problems that can be contributed to enrollment cancellations and to the declining enrollment is the new enrollment system that the college now uses.
The student information system has
caused confusion and frustration for students
and faculty because of computer
glitches.
According to some students, who were
expected to receive financial aid and scholarship money, they didn’t receive it in time and were dropped from their classes due to non-payment.
Some students weren’t sure when to
pay their tuition by because unlike the old
system, the new system doesn’t give a student receipt with their class schedule and the date that their tuition is due.
Other students were unaware that starting
on Aug. 11, they were only given a 24-
hour window to pay for their classes.
“When I registered over the phone, the
guy didn’t tell me I had to pay by the end
of the day, so I got dropped and couldn’t
get back into my classes,” said MCC student
Jen Johnson.
Others were dropped because not
enough students filled up their class and
they were never contacted about it.
“My math class got dropped because
there weren’t enough people in it and no
one contacted me. It was really hard to
get helped,” said MCC student Marijke
Studer.
However, some students had no problems
at all when registering.
“I registered here and it was easy. I
didn’t have any problems at all,” said
MCC student Kaitlyn Miller.
To help solve many of the student’s
and faculty’s problems with the enrollment
meltdown, an informational meeting was
held on Monday, Sept. 8, in which members
of the faculty, the department heads,
and President Shouan Pan discussed ways
on how to make registration for spring and
next fall more student friendly.
One of the main things the group plans
to work on for the next registration period
is having more communication with students
about when their tuition is due.
Pan mentioned that TV monitors,
MCC’s Web site, verbal instructions, and
newsletters are all sources to let students
know what is going on, but also admitted
that work still needed to be done on the
communication side.
“No matter what we do, some students
still won’t know, but we still need to improve,” Pan said.
At the meeting, several options were
proposed. The two options that were discussed were when there would be weekly
enrollment cancellations and whether or
not to do overnight enrollment cancellations again.
MCC isn’t the first community college
to have done nightly enrollment cancellations; Chandler-Gilbert Community College has been doing it as well, according to Pan.
The reason for the enrollment cancellation
change from weekly to daily was to
establish student tuition and fee payment
accountability close to the start of the semester.
Many students have not been in favor
of overnight enrollment cancellations because it gives them less time to pay and
less time to receive their financial aid.
In order for students to receive their
financial aid on time, Pan suggested that
students apply early in advance so they
can be sure to receive it.
Sonya Pearson, institutional advancement
director, said that MCC has three
goals they want to accomplish for registration in the spring.
“Number one is to be more student-friendly, number two is better communication with students and faculty, and number three is allowing students enough time to pay,” Pearson said.
Despite all of the problems in the first
week of school, Pan remains confident that
the problem will be resolved in time for
spring registration.
“All of our faculty want students to
succeed, that’s what we are here for,” Pan said.
