CC reports increased enrollment

Clarendon College is continuing to grow with spring enrollment figures showing a 19.7 percent increase in headcount over last year.

Total enrollment settled at 1,358 following the 12th class day last week. That’s up from the spring 2009 enrollment of 1,150 and 1,043 in the spring of 2008.

“Our current spring in enrollment is greater than our fall enrollment was three years ago,” said CC President Bill Auvenshine. “For the spring we’re up 28.5 percent compared to two years ago.”

College funding is based on contact hours, which the time students actually spend in classrooms, and that figure is also going up. Contact hours this spring are up 17.6 percent over last year and up 35.9 percent from two years ago.

“We are now the second largest community college in the Panhandle,” Auvenshine said, noting that CC has now passed the size Frank Phillips College in Borger.
Several factors have contributed to the increased number of students.

“We’ve got an extremely good staff, we’ve got better marketing, and we’ve added vocational programs,” Auvenshine said. “Our nursing program has doubled, and we’re seeing growth in wind energy, heating and air-conditioning, and cosmetology.”

CC has also developed a reputation for good instruction, a reflection on the quality of instructors at the college, Auvenshine said.

“We can show that our students do well when they go on to West Texas A&M or Texas Tech,” he said.

More than 90 percent of this semester’s students were pre-registered before the semester began, which Auvenshine said made registration time easier and also demonstrated that students in the fall wanted to come back and make sure they got the classes they wanted.

Enrollment on the home campus in Clarendon is now 391 compared to 356 last spring. An additional 27 students are taking dual credit classes at Clarendon High School. The college has grown considerably at the CC Pampa Center with enrollment now at 335, up from 218. Another 103 students are taking classes at Pampa High School.