Northern campuses see growth in state college enrollment

Ken Ritter

Friday, Jan. 5, 2001 | 9:55 a.m.

Southern Nevada has a booming population, but northern Nevada had more growth in community college and university enrollment last fall.

The Community College of Southern Nevada is attributing a 5.4 percent decrease in fall 2000 student enrollment to a $1 million cut in funding free classes for first-time students and to a statistical hiccup.

"We think this is a leveling out after five years of growth that we're going to absorb," CCSN spokesman John Kuminecz said Thursday. "We think we're healthy."

Overall, a total of 502 more full-time students attended the state's two universities and four community colleges in the fall of 2000 compared with the previous year, data from the University and Community College System of Nevada shows.

At the University of Nevada, Reno, full-time enrollment jumped 6 percent, to 10,469 in fall 2000 compared with 9,881 a year ago.

Great Basin College in Elko gained 5.6 percent, from 1,252 students in fall 1999 to 1,322 in 2000.

Melisa Choroszy, registrar at UNR, said the state's Millennium scholarship program has encouraged some students to attend state schools instead of going out-of-state.

The program pays qualified students with B-average grades up to $10,000 in financial aid at state schools.

Choroszy said the Reno campus was working hard to attract high school students from the Las Vegas Valley, where population has boomed in recent years.

Lynn Mahlberg, dean of enrollment at Great Basin College, credited Millennium scholarships with drawing students to Elko from the surrounding 45,000-square-mile community college area.

She said that after 30 years as a two-year college, Great Basin began offering a bachelor's degree in elementary education last fall.

Enrollment at UNLV grew from 15,428 in Fall 1999 to 15,931 in 2000, a 3.3 percent increase.

Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno had 3.4 percent growth, to 5,032 students.

Western Nevada Community College saw full-time enrollment decrease by seven students to 2,037 students.

At the Community College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, Kuminecz tallied 12,900 students pre-enrolled for spring 2001, compared with 11,400 pre-enrolled at the same time a year ago. If that 13 percent hike holds, it would boost the average for the year, he said.

The budget for the "first time free" program was cut from $1.2 million in 1999 to $200,000 last fall, Kuminecz said.