Lone Star College board discusses enrollment decrease amid coronavirus

The Lone Star College board of trustees discussed enrollment trends for the fall semester during a Nov. 12 meeting. Enrollment is only slightly down as compared to previous years in terms of student head counts and enrollment hours, despite coronavirus and remote learning being prioritized.

LSC Chancellor Stephen Head said that for the semester, the system was down less than 1% in student head count and around 4% in student credit hours.

"If you can be pleased about a decline, I was," Head said. "In our region—and most community colleges across the country showed significant declines in enrollment, so we are working on that."

Day One head count information from LSC shows enrollment dropped from 87,656 in fall 2019 to 86,041 in fall 2020 across the system. Student credit hours, which indicate how many classes are taken by students, were also down, from 610,679 in 2019 to 588,885 in 2020.

However, Head noted, as of Nov. 10, the student drop rate was down from 8% last year to 6.9% this year for in-person classes and 6.6% for online classes, which indicates fewer students are withdrawing from classes across the system.

"We are holding onto our students," Head said.

When building the fiscal year 2020-2021 budget, LSC officials anticipated an overall enrollment decline of around 10% for the year, including the upcoming spring and summer semesters.

Head said enrollment registration for the spring semester opened Nov. 11, and while it is too early to estimate a total, the initial numbers are looking good.