After waiting nearly seven weeks to publically share the great news, Dixie State College of Utah officials announced Monday a dramatic rise in the institution's 2008 Fall Semester enrollment numbers. The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) officially released its third week enrollment figures for the fall semester, which showed that DSC posted an 8% increase in total headcount with 6,443 students, 499 students ahead of last year's total of 5,944.
DSC's full-time equivalency (FTE*) figures for the fall semester also rose almost 11% with 4,422 students, compared to 3,988 students this time last year. In addition, the College's Budget Related FTE experienced the highest-percentage increase in the USHE System at nearly 12% overall with 4,332 students, up 460 students from last year's total of 3,872.
College officials attribute the growth to a number of factors, including affordable tuition costs, the addition of new baccalaureate and associate degree programs, and the quality and talent of Dixie's faculty. DSC's vice president of student services, Frank B. Lojko, is also quick to point out a challenge made by new President Dr. Stephen D. Nadauld soon after he took office last spring.
"President Nadauld challenged the Office of Recruitment and the Dixie campus as a whole to set a target of bringing 400 new students to Dixie State for this fall," Lojko said. "In redesigning some of our existing strategies, we developed a special recipe for success, and as everyone can now see, we exceeded our goal. Now we need to go out there and work even harder and continue to build on this success."
Dixie State also saw a 36% increase in upper division enrollment with 1,131 total headcount, up an even 300 students from last year, and a 15% increase in first-time freshman with 1,431 students, compared to 1,249 in the fall of 2007. DSC also welcomed 121 new transfer students from other institutions, a 45% rise (391 total transfer students in 2008) from a year ago.
"We anticipated that our fall 2008 enrollment would grow due to efforts of building a sound enrollment strategy plan," Lojko said. "We have begun offering additional two and four-year degree programs, and we are focusing special attention to building a positive college student-life culture on campus for all students.
"We are equally as pleased with the continued rise of our upper division enrollment," Lojko added. "A lot of work has gone into our retention efforts and we remain focused on giving our students every opportunity to complete their four-year degrees while at Dixie State."
*One FTE is defined as any combination of 15 units of credit enrolled in by one or more students. For example, if a student is taking 15 credit hours, that equals one FTE. If 15 students take one credit, that equals one FTE as well.
