By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Community College President Carter File was not surprised by the numbers released by the Kansas Board of Regents this week that show the school up 20 full-time equivalent students this year.
"We expected and hoped to see a bounce from last year, because of the return of students and students not as eager to take off that gap year to let the coronavirus settle down," File said. "We would always love to see stronger growth, but if you look across the system, being up almost 1% is actually probably in the top half to top third of performance across the state."
The calendars of K-12 education getting back closer to normal has also helped a little with dual enrollment situations.
"One of the challenges last year was that our schedules with the USDs, because they started late, our schedules didn't align as well," File said. "We did have some drop in our Excel in Career Technical Education enrollment."
Ultimately, there are demographic challenges with the rural parts of the state losing population that Hutchinson Community College must overcome.
"We recruit in the entire state," File said. "We have great programs. Hutchinson's a wonderful place for students to come and experience their first two years. We think we're positioned very well to weather that demographic decrease. A more troubling trend has been over the last five years, that the college going rate has also decreased. Not only do we have declining graduation numbers, we also have a declining total number of students who choose to go on to postsecondary education."
The hope is that through programs like Excel in Career Technical Education and the Promise Act that students who want to go on to postsecondary education can believe they can afford to and so they will make that choice.