By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — After being away for more than a month, students will be returning to the HutchCC campus on Monday. The good news is that enrollment is up over last spring.
“We’re moving forward, ready to start classes next Monday morning,” spokesperson Denny Stoecklein said. “Enrollment credit hours are up about one and a half percent over what they were last spring.”
Stoecklein says he attributes the increase to students wanting to learn from home as opposed to learning on campus at a bigger school, but being limited to a virtual format, something that was expected if the pandemic continued.
“Some of the feedback we were hearing in the fall . . . students who were perhaps at a four-year (college) and spending time at the four-year but doing everything online shared that they may look to come back home and take classes from us instead of spending dollars at another institution,” Stoecklein said.
Stoecklein says that he hasn’t broken down the areas of study for students for the spring semester, but did note that the vocational programs offered at the college will be busy again this year.
“We’re hearing that,” Stoecklein said. “As a matter of fact, this morning (Thursday) we were on a conference call with a few of us and an employer out of McPherson said that business is great, we just need bodies. We need people. And that’s not an uncommon thing we hear.”
Stoecklein says that while most community colleges saw enrollment drop by 7%, HutchCC's enrollment loss was less than 2%.