By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
A new program to encourage high school students to take college courses has been a plus for Bowling Green State University enrollment.
College Credit Plus started this fall as a replacement for the more limited post-secondary education options program. State officials hope it will encourage more students to get college credits before they graduate.
In discussing enrollment for the spring semester at BGSU Monday, Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Planning Cecilia Castellano said that some of the increase in undergraduate enrollment was attributable to students enrolled in College Credit Plus.
That was especially true at Firelands, said Castellano. Firelands has long been strong in reaching out to high school students both with the earlier PSEOP program, and now Credit Plus.
The university has also seen an increase in graduate enrollment, she said. Part of that is high school teachers coming back to take the courses to get the credentials they need to teach the college courses back in their schools.
The university has a state grant to support that program.
The news Monday was good for BGSU as it reported its 15-day enrollment numbers.
The university has 509 more undergraduate and graduate students enrolled this spring compared to a year ago, a 3.3 percent increase. That brings enrollment on the Bowling Green campus to 16,036. Firelands saw a 9.7-percent increase to bring its study body to 2,232. That’s a 4-percent increase overall for BGSU.
Undergraduate enrollment in Bowling Green was up 281 students, 2.1 percent, from a year ago, and graduate enrollment was up 228, 9.5 percent, from a year ago. BGSU enrolled 102 new graduate students this semester, more than double the number of new graduate students enrolled last spring.
Dean of the Graduate College Michael Ogawa said that the Masters in Business Administration, the new business analytics and computer science are driving the increase. Those programs, he said, are especially attracting foreign students, mostly from China and India.
As important as the number of students enrolled are the number of students who stay. How many students graduate is the major factor in how the state doles out money to higher education.
The figure show that more than 92 percent of the students who started their BGSU careers last fall have remained in school. “We’re on track to meet our retention goals,” Castellano said. That number is in line with last year.”“We’re continuing to see the benefits of the retention efforts we’ve put in place over the last several years,” said BGSU spokesman Dave Kielmeyer.
Those include having freshman enroll in linked courses where they are in class with a cohort of students, and where faculty can more closely monitor their progress.
Those faculty, Castellano explained, work closely with advisors to intervene if a student appears to be faltering.
Castellano said looking ahead to next fall, university recruiting efforts are “consistent to where we need to be to meet our goal.”
Last week President Mary Ellen Mazey that recruitment efforts are going well both in terms of numbers of students indicating they will attend BGSU in the fall and the academic preparation of those students.
Castellano said that bringing in students who are better prepared for college based both on high school grades and ACT scores plays a big role in making sure the students are able to continue their university studies.
The university, she said, is also making progress attracting transfer students. A new program announced in December with Owens Community College streamlines the process for students to move from Owens to BGSU.
Through the Falcon Express program, students are enrolled both in Owens and BGSU, so the courses they complete at the community college automatically are entered on their BGSU transcript.
This means students can track their progress toward a four-year degree from their first semester.
