02/02/10

When the economy gets tough, the tough go back to school; that influx of additional students is stretching the local community college. So if you thought there are a lot more people on the College of Southern Idaho campus these days, you're absolutely correct.

College of Southern Idaho Spokesman Doug Maughan says, “Enrollment is up very strongly this year at CSI. We have over 8500 students this semester. And that's more than 1,000 additional students compared to what we had in the spring of 2009.”

Maughan says the increase in students is putting a strain on the existing resources that CSI has. He says they're trying to determine if this increase is just a bubble, or an indicator of an increase that won't go away anytime soon.

According to Maughan, “We think that the sour economy has a lot to do with it. And that means there are a lot more people who are out of work, and quite frankly, they have more time to be students. They have more time to take more classes.”

Maughan says the bottom line is that students are also taking more credits than they have in previous years.

He says the CSI Board of Directors will discuss whether or not to raise the $100 per credit hour fees at their meeting later this month.

Maughan says there are about 50 high schools who allow their students to take dual credit classes and earn college credits while they're still in high school.

“Right now we have about 1800 dual credit students. We could hit the 2,000 mark as some of the remaining schools who have not reported their numbers yet send their numbers to us.”