Despite growth, DMACC keeps class sizes small.
Enrollment at Des Moines Area Community College’s (DMACC’s) six campuses has reached yet another milestone. Headcount has increased 10.46 percent to 24,658 students this fall compared to fall of 2009. The number of credit hours was up 9 percent, reaching 211,828 credit hours taken by DMACC students this fall.
The headcount and number of credit hours were up double digits at DMACC’s Ankeny and Urban campuses. Last fall at this time, there were 22,324 students taking 194,179 credit hours. 2009 fall enrollment grew 19 percent over 2008.
“With more than 2,300 additional students on our campuses this Fall, DMACC is an exciting place to work” said Rob Denson, president of DMACC. “As a result, we’ve hired new faculty, added more online and face-to-face classes, found additional classroom space and made other accommodations to serve these students.”
Denson pointed out that these figures are only credit students. Non-credit, English as a Second Language and General Education Degree (GED) students could easily double the number of students taking classes at DMACC. Administrators predict nearly 70,000 credit and non-credit students at DMACC during this fiscal year.
“Despite the busy hallways and full parking lots, DMACC has the capacity to serve all of our students,” said Laurie Wolf, executive dean of student services, who also noted, based on our physical classroom setups, the student to professor ratio is still 19 to 1. “You won’t find that on many college or university campuses.”
DMACC credit enrollment has grown considerably during the past five years, up nearly 55 percent. That’s 8,600 more credit students attending DMACC this fall than in the fall of 2005. Denson credited DMACC faculty and staff for their hard work serving the thousands of new students.
“DMACC is a wonderful educational value. While some are retooling their skills in this down economy, we are attracting many traditional-age college and university students,” Denson said. “They all receive a great education at thousands of dollars less than they could find anywhere else.”
DMACC's enrollment figures are the official figures reported to the Iowa Department of Education on the14th day after classes begin to reflect accurate year-to-year comparisons.
DMACC offers credit classes in career education and college transfer programs at full-service campuses in Ankeny, Boone, Carroll, Newton, Urban Des Moines and West Des Moines.