{"id":75290,"date":"2017-10-15T21:52:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T03:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-enrollment-down-6-6-percent\/"},"modified":"2017-10-16T03:52:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T03:52:19","slug":"fort-lewis-college-enrollment-down-6-6-percent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-enrollment-down-6-6-percent\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College enrollment down 6.6 percent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=388ccf49-fdff-4656-9e63-0efabb588ac7&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1817\" height=\"1208\" alt=\"Student enrollment at Fort Lewis College continues to decline, in part because of increased admission standards. FLC turned away over 700 students for the fall semester.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Student enrollment at Fort Lewis College continues to decline, in part because of increased admission standards. FLC turned away over 700 students for the fall semester.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Fall enrollment at Fort Lewis College is down 6.6 percent compared with last year \u2013 the lowest it has been in more than a decade \u2013 prompting the college to increase its effort to boost retention and enrollment even as it raises admission standards.<\/p>\n<p>President Dene Thomas said changing admission requirements are partly a contributing factor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe competition in higher education for freshman and transfer students is particularly fierce across the West,\u201d Thomas told the college\u2019s Board of Trustees at its quarterly meeting Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Student enrollment for the fall semester is 3,356 \u2013239 students shy of the previous year. Fall enrollment in 2016 was 3,595, which at that time was the lowest enrollment in more than a decade. During the recession is 2009, fall enrollment was 3,685.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas said the college is considering several ways to stem the decline, including transitioning to become a university.<\/p>\n<p>Four-year colleges in Colorado are raising their admission standards, which will take effect in 2019. FLC is gradually phasing into the new standards.<\/p>\n<p>The standards are a combination of test scores and GPA.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas said the number of applicants who are not admitted has increased steadily in recent years. In 2016, 614 applicants were denied admission. This year, it was 752.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHigher education can sometimes be slow to evolve,\u201d said FLC spokesman Mitch Davis. \u201cFLC needs to look at the enrollment numbers as motivation to evaluate if we\u2019re offering both what students are demanding and what they need for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Davis said despite declining enrollment, the average high school GPA for incoming freshmen continues to increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, that average GPA stands at 3.31, the highest in at least the last five years,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n<p>Fewer students means the institution will take a financial hit, but Davis said the FLC budget committee anticipated the enrollment decline and planned accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe college has no plans for personnel cuts this year as a result of these enrollment numbers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:mrupani@durangoherald.com\">mrupani@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freshman class has highest GPA in over five years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[155,132,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-75290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-education","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75290"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=75290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}