By UNIVERSITY RELATIONS<\/b><\/p>\n
However you measure it, Fort Hays State University has turned in an 18th consecutive fall semester record with a 20th-day enrollment of 9,473 full-time-equivalent students.<\/p>\n
Full time equivalency (FTE) is calculated by dividing the total number of undergraduate student credit hours (SCH) taken in a semester by 15 and graduate credit hours by 12.
\nThe Kansas Board of Regents decided this summer to transition the traditional preliminary enrollment count \u2013 the 20th day count \u2013 from the headcount metric to a full-time-equivalency metric for 2018.
\nAccording to the KBOR news release on systemwide enrollment, \u201cThis change will provide uniform data across the system to the Board, to leaders from across the system, and to the public.\u201d
\nThe 20th day, set by the Regents as the official enrollment day to provide a standard basis of comparison from year to year, was Sept. 17 for Fort Hays State. Regents policy is to hold any announcement of enrollments until numbers are in and verified for all Regents institutions.
\nThe increase in FTE at Fort Hays State was the largest among the six Regents universities and Washburn, the state\u2019s municipal university, both in number, 190, and percentage, 2.05.
\n\u201cThere are so many metrics we use to measure a university \u2013 enrollment, academic quality, financial stability, and community and global engagement, all areas in which Fort Hays State consistently demonstrates excellence,\u201d said Dr. Tisa Mason, president of Fort Hays State.
\n\u201cBut for us, it is about much more than moving the needle. It is about impacting lives and communities,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery single day we invest in students with the personal care and innovative education that will become the foundation for their success.\u201d
\nWhile the university\u2019s student body has drawn its record-setting increases from around the world, the university\u2019s population of Kansas students has also shown continuous increases. This year\u2019s total of 7,848 Kansans is 280 more than last year\u2019s 7,568. This increase is especially notable since the Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR) for a number of years has challenged the regent universities to serve and credential more Kansans. FHSU has responded as the Kansas resident student body at FHSU has grown by 2,344 since 2008.
\nDr. Dennis King, assistant vice president for enrollment management, pointed to a significant milestone this year: \u201cFor the first time, enrollment in the Virtual College, not including enrollment at the university\u2019s international partners, was over the 7,000 mark at 7,005. Enrollment at the international partners of the Virtual College was an additional 4,007 students.\u201d
\nKing also noted that this year\u2019s success includes the fourth-largest on-campus freshman class in history at 948. The number of transfer students also increased for FHSU this year, even though nationally the numbers of transfer students are in decline.
\nFort Hays State set another record in headcount, with 15,523, an increase of 423, or slightly more than 2.8 percent, from the fall 2017 headcount of 15,100. Those numbers represent 4,511 on-campus students taking a total of 52,680 student credit hours; 7,005 Virtual College students taking a total of 63,873 SCH; and 4,007 students in FHSU\u2019s international partner institutions, primarily in China, taking a total of 21,480 SCH.
\nTotal enrollment, by headcount, is 12,780 undergraduates and 2,743 graduate students.
\n\u201cIncreasing student retention has also been an intentional focus for FHSU,\u201d said Dr. Tim Crowley, associate provost for academic affairs. Student retention is a measure of how many students return for a second and succeeding years. This year\u2019s overall retention rate, 73.8%, he said, includes retention of last year\u2019s freshmen at the second-highest level in the last 15 years.
\n\u201cOver the past decade,\u201d said Crowley, \u201cwe have added learning communities, the Honors College and the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science. We have developed the freshman seminar course, redesigned our college algebra curriculum and created the student engagement and advisor program to provide support for our online students.\u201d
\nAnother metric \u2013 an especially important one for Fort Hays State \u2013 is also one of the factors that prompted the Regents to move to the credit-hour metric from the headcount metric. That is part-time students. In the 2017 academic year, 63 percent of students across the Regents system were part-time students. The KBOR system encompasses six four-year universities, 19 community colleges and six technical colleges.
\nAt FHSU for the 20th-day count for fall 2018, more than 58 percent of the student body is part time. That is 9,065 students, graduate and undergraduate, taking 50,298 credit hours, or 36 percent of the university\u2019s total 138,033 credit hours.
\nThose part-time students include 1,706 undergraduate Kansas students and 5,211 non-Kansans. In the Graduate School, the number includes 1,465 part-time Kansas students and 683 non-Kansas students.
\nThe high percentage of part-time students who choose Fort Hays State was a key factor in the university\u2019s ranking in September as No. 10 in the nation for adult learners by The Washington Monthly, which focuses its rankings on adult learners. Another factor in that ranking was FHSU\u2019s 80-percent graduation rate for part-time students and ease of transfer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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