Original_To:  BITNET%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sun, 16 Aug 1992 13:49:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) Is your student population changing? (4)

Date:         Sun, 16 Aug 1992 09:52:18 EDT
From:         IN%"R0MILL01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU" Robert Royar (C&CD Moderator)
Message-Id:   <1992Aug16.095218.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject:      Is your student population changing? (4)
Reply-to:     IN%"R0MILL01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU"  Robert Royar
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

I get the impression from the thread that's been running for two weeks about
dwindling resources, student numbers, and *manipulating* student brain
patterns in a value-added-retail way that most of your students are
teenagers.  Is it the case that for most iMBUers the class is still
traditional college age?

Our school (NYIT) suffered some real cutbacks and enrollment declines during
the last three years.  While I have no official numbers, we went from about
14,000 students 5 years ago to 9,000 students last year.  Our current
enrollments (based on figures for Fall 1992) seem to be up.  Orientation and
placement numbers are higher than last year's.  We are an open-admission
(private) school whose tuition (~$230.00 per credit hour) is lower than other
private schools in the area but higher than the state (SUNY) schools (whose
admissions policies are intricate and sometimes exclusionary).

We have been tracking changes in our enrollment, and those changes are a bit
odd--seeming to point to overall disatisfaction with higher education.  Our
first-year enrollments have remained relatively high, but attrition has been a
problem after the first through fourth semesters.  On the other hand we've had
a large influx of transfer students into the junior-level courses both from the
state two-year schools and from other LI four-year institutions.  This
transfer-student influx has been so great in the last few years as to create
burdens on our English department:
    We have a 9 hour writing requirement culminating in an intermediate
    writing course in either business, technical, report, or
    architectural writing.  The transfer students getting into these
    intermediate courses are often not at a level that would pass our
    Comp I exit criteria. Often 25% of my classes are transfers.

Well, the transfer issue is an interesting one because the students we start
with are transfering out, while a new group transfers in.  The graduating
class size has increased slightly over the years, so we're obviously gaining
more than we lose, but the implication is that students are generally less
satisfied than any college would like to see.  I wonder how many other schools
have seen this phenomenon.  Also I'd suspect that proximity to other schools
increases this phenomenon (LIU is literally next door and SUNY campuses are
near by).

Part of the same phenom has been the rise of returning students and of
over-25-year-old students in the classroom (especially at the intermediate and
above levels).  We have an active "life-experience" and course-challenge
program which attracts these students.  (I grade many life-experience
portfolios and have been often very impressed by what the older students (some
VPs for large corps.) produce.)

The school likes to attract these students because they tend to become
involved in alumni activities, be proud of their degrees, pay their bills on
time, and be able to articulate their needs.  I had a student (only two years
younger than I) in my tech writing class this summer.  He has worked as a
design engineer for a number of electronics and chemical companies since
1976.  I also had in the class a student who's returning to find better
employment who's worked for large corporations.  There were other older
students along with the 19-21 year olds.

The older students help a lot (usually) because they help me to qualify
(clarify) my assignments--having already done what I'm asking (but on the job)
they are used to asking supervisors to explain an assignment, and they know
what the assignments entail.  They're a help because they speak with
experience to the other students, and I can depend on them to do part of my
job.  I am, after all, only a guide or at best a coach for my students.  When
my students create their companies and design their products to present to the
class, having a few older (returning) students in each "company" helps keep
the groups on task and gives them a bit more confidence that they can actually
accomplish this project (projects that usually scare away 5 students per class
after the first day).

What's my point, and how does this fit the thread that got me going?

I was just wondering how other teachers' class makeup (age, majors, etc.)
affected the view of the writing class and the view of the tasks at hand?  I
also wondered whther those who were seeing real declines in enrollments had
many of these "non-traditional" students.  By the way the University of
Louisville (where I took my courses) was very non-traditional oriented.  I was
about two years older than the national average for grad school but about ten
years younger than most of my grad school companions.  I regularly taught
classes with students even twice my age (on occasion I taught classes where
those who were older than I was (~25) outnumbered those who were younger than
I).

 --Robert Royar (r0mill01@ulkyvx.bitnet) New York Institute of Technology

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