Northwest College served 1,389 students in the fall semester, down 4% from the year before, although the number of hours students took classes for was only down 1% as the average student took more credits to make up for some of the loss.

Institutional Research Manager Lisa Smith unveiled the fall enrollment report for trustees at last week’s Northwest College board meeting and said the decrease at NWC in enrollment is shared by many colleges in the region and nationally. 

Of those students, 47% are classified as full time and 53%, or 730 students, are part time.

That keeps the college as once again the state community college with the highest percentage of full time students, a mark it has held since at least 2000.

Smith said the number of part-time students has grown in recent years, however, and said a lot of that can be attributed to high school students taking dual and concurrent classes.

“The majority of part-time students are non-degree seeking, and that’s heavily influenced by dual/concurrent,” she said.

Programs at the popular Center for Training and Development, such as CTD classes, also attract many non-degree seeking students out for a certificate or other job training.

Students under 18 account for the largest percentage of the NWC population (33%). These are typically dual and concurrent high school students. Students ages 18-19 account for 32% of NWC’s population, the highest percentage in the state for these ages. NWC’s average student age is 22.

NWC is also the most popular school, percentage wise, for students from border states and other regional states, and is the most popular period for international students with 99.