Eric Pedersen, UAA's chief of enrollment, breathed a sigh of relief last Monday, the first day of fall semester at UAA. Since last spring, when students could register for fall 2015 classes, the state's budget woes from plummeting oil prices had dominated headlines. Would students still come?
That's a question UAA has rarely had to ask. Being located within 90 minutes of 60 percent of the state's population has always meant steady demand -- from both traditional and nontraditional college students. Would news of belt-tightening and leaner days ahead discourage even those steady customers?
Over the summer, it looked like it would.
"This was a very challenging spring and summer for the institution," Pedersen said. "At some points, the Anchorage campus was as much as 9 percent behind last year's head count, and over 10 percent behind in credits that students had signed up to take."
That gap closed in August. "We've turned that around to less than 1 percent behind in head count and less than 2 percent in enrolled credit hours," Pedersen said.
On Monday 2,542 new students walked through the doors at UAA's main campus. Of those, 1,413 were freshmen in the class of 2019. Some 510 were continuing students, "folks we are familiar with," Pedersen said -- who are now shifting into specific degree programs. Some 589 were transfers from outside UAA, which can mean they came from Colorado or Fairbanks, and all points in between.
These newcomers fit into a total student body of 16,000 at UAA's Anchorage campus. That number edges toward 20,000 when UAA's four community campuses are included. About 1,000 live on campus.
Pedersen and his enrollment services team, along with staff and faculty in colleges across the campus, tackled the enrollment decline with a robust outreach to admitted students who hadn't yet registered for their next semester.
"We even went further back, not just to last spring, but to last fall. We phoned and emailed them," he said. "We helped them solve their problems and reminded them of next steps."
This is a new but critical effort, Pedersen said, as demographics are no longer in UAA's favor -- or that of any college or university, nationwide. That's because the country is going through a walloping dip in graduating high school seniors. Numbers are projected to rebound, but not until 2027. Alaska's last peak came in 2009, when 8,200 high school students graduated. Twelve years from now, the state is projected to have 8,600 high school graduates. This year the state hovered at just above 7,000. (wiche.edu/info/knocking-8th/profiles/ak.pdf). In addition, population growth in Anchorage has leveled or slightly declined.
Student tuition is an important source of revenue. For perspective, about 43 percent of UAA's budget comes from the state of Alaska's general fund. About 24 percent comes from tuition, and the balance from grants and other sources. The budget for this school year, which included managing a shortfall of $13 million from the state general fund, relied on coming within earshot of last fall's enrollment. "We hit that projection," Pedersen said. "Getting there took a campuswide effort."
But he, like enrollment officers around the country, expects recruitment to become ever more challenging in the years ahead. To that end, UAA has added two recruiters to its existing team of two. Two continue to work within Alaska. The third focuses on transfer students and the fourth is building contacts and relationships with high schools on the West Coast and in Colorado and Texas, all places that typically deliver some high school graduates to UAA.
So, filling the seats for the Class of 2019 was a challenge, but who are they?
Some 1,140 freshmen came from Anchorage high schools. East High sent the most, at 178 students. Service followed, with 159; Dimond, with 146; West with 125; and South, with 115. Chugiak and Eagle River sent 112 and 68, respectively. Although Alaska's oil economy has often meant high-paying entry-level jobs (and fewer high school students going to college), of those who choose higher education, two-thirds stay in Alaska, Pedersen said.
As a class, their entering GPA is 3.01. Women outnumber men 56 percent to 44 percent. The class is growing more diverse, with 52.5 percent reporting as white and non-Hispanic and 47.5 percent reporting some other background: (13.7 percent Alaska Native; 12.5 percent Asian; 5.9 percent black and non-Hispanic; 2.7 percent Hawaiian or Pacific Islander; and just 3 percent not reporting. Last year 7.5 percent declined to report race.
A total of 135 students enter from out of state. Biggest pipelines come from California (with 21), Washington (13), Texas (12), Colorado (10) and Oregon (8). Thirty-five nations are represented, from Angola to Vietnam -- mostly with one or two students each. Exceptions include 11 Canadians, 12 from the Philippines and five from Thailand. UAA's master's degree in business administration program has its first Chinese student, here to earn that degree in just 10 months as a part of a new partnership with a Chinese university.
As Pedersen might say, we're off to the races.
Kathleen McCoy works at UAA where she highlights campus life in social and online media.