College enrollment has declined due to pandemic

LITTLE ROCK — Enrollment has dropped at many state-supported colleges and universities because of disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville reported a healthy increase in its student population. The university has 29,068 students enrolled, which is 5.5% more than last year.

Institutions make a preliminary count on the 11th day of the fall semester.

The enrollment jump at the Fayetteville campus was helped by a large infusion of students from outside Arkansas. This year’s freshman class of 6,064 students includes 3,422 students from out of state.

Arkansas State University reported basically a “flat” trend. Enrollment this fall is 13,772, which is slightly fewer than last year. The decrease is less than 1%.

Enrollment at the University of Central Arkansas at Conway is down about 2.2% from last year, to 10,109 students.

This semester Arkansas Tech has seen a decline of 10.9% in enrollment at its campuses in Russellville and Ozark, to a total of 9,645.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has a decreased enrollment of 7.9%. The total number of students in its graduate and undergraduate programs is 6,986.

Some higher education officials cited the coronavirus as a factor for the drop in enrollment. In some cases students were concerned about exposure to the virus and in other cases a family’s finances were harmed by the pandemic. Finances are a major factor in the recruitment and retention of students.

The most popular college scholarship program in Arkansas is the Academic Challenge Scholarship, which is paid for with revenue from lottery tickets. Last year the lottery scholarships were awarded to 30,580 students.

Since 2011 the program has distributed more than a billion dollars in scholarships.

The sale of lottery tickets is affected by the size of the jackpots in Powerball and Mega Millions. When the lottery has an enormous prize at stake, sales go up and more revenue is placed into scholarships.

Another factor is the price of gasoline. When it costs less to fill the gas tank, a person has more disposable cash to buy a lottery ticket. Convenience stores, gas stations and truck stops are popular spots for lottery ticket sales.

To qualify for the Academic Challenge Scholarship, students must take a full load. That means 12 hours in their first semester after high school, and 15 hours in all subsequent semesters. They must have a composite score of 19 or higher on the ACT standardized college admission test.

The average ACT score of last year’s high school graduates who went to an Arkansas college and received an Academic Challenge Scholarship was 22.7.

To keep the scholarship they must maintain a cumulative grade point average of 2.5, where a grade of A is 4.0, a grade of B is 3.0 and a grade of C is 2.0.

After their first academic year they must have completed 27 hours of course work, and after each following year they must complete 30 hours.

The state Division of Higher Education web site has information about paying for college, how to apply for scholarships and how to apply for student loans. The Internet address is www.adhe.edu.