As Sinclair Community College winds down the academic year, enrollment for the following quarter continues to boom.
Melissa Tolle, interim senior director of Enrollment management, said more students than ever before are preparing to take classes this summer. Through 30 percent of the registration cycle, Sinclair counts nearly 7,200 students attending the college this summer with less than three weeks to register.
At this same point in last year’s enrollment process, the head count was 6,018 students. The final number recorded from last year’s enrollment count was 10,844 students.
Tolle said the headcount is up 21 percent and the number of full-time enrollment students is up 27 percent.
“By no means does summer have the same volume (as Fall, Winter or Spring quarter), but it is a leader for us in terms of what sets the trend for going into the Fall quarter,” Tolle said.
With payment for Summer quarter due on June 11, Tolle believes the final number is going to overshadow the previous record totals of the past few summers.
“We’re only 3,000 (students) away from last year’s numbers at 30 percent through the cycle,” Tolle said.
Summer quarter at Sinclair offers A-term, B-term, C-term and D-term to help students plan around flexible schedules. Tolle said the majority of summer classes are general education-based to help accommodate four-year college students who may be home for the summer.
“A big population that we market to that’s not typical for the rest of the quarter are called transient students,” she said. “Those are students who have a different home college that might be coming home this summer and want to pick up some classes.”
Tolle said enrollment has risen steadily every quarter over the past few years.
“We expect (enrollment) to level out at some point,” she said. “We’ve had a 28 enrollment increase in enrollment in the last two years and we’re projecting another double-digit increase in the fall.”