College of DuPage fall enrollment jumps 7.7 percent

Fall enrollment of full-time students at College of DuPage is up 7.7 percent compared to last year.

The spike is attributed in part to high unemployment in the region; the recently unemployed often return to school to learn new skills in hopes of re-enetering the job market, officials say. Also, the college says it marketed itself better this year.

"This is the first summer we've had a coordinated marketing effort done," said Joe Moore, COD's associate vice president of external communications.

Full-time students take 12 or more credit hours per semester, and by Thursday 14,694 of them had registered for classes that begin Monday. That's roughly 1,000 more than last year, college officials said.

COD President Robert Breuder was targeting a 7.5 percent increase, and the college still has to retain those students at least until the midpoint of the semester for the spike to count toward increased state funding, said Michelle Searer, associate vice president for marketing and enrollment. The school also will take another important head count 10 days after the start of school that the state will use for its opening day enrollment calculations.

Last fall, COD enrollment increased a little more than 2 percent compared to the previous year while other state community colleges were reporting higher enrollment bounces as unemployment rose around the state. DuPage County wasn't immune to increased unemployment, but the rate only recently increased to points that other areas have been grappling with for a year or more, Moore said.

COD saw summer enrollment increase 5.4 percent, which Searer said was the first significant increase in that category in several years.

The increased student body comes despite increased tuition that in some cases was doubled. COD began charging double for nursing and dental hygiene courses this year, but that hasn't seemed to diminish interest, Searer said. While she didn't have any data on application numbers for those programs, Searer said they are all at capacity.