Local college sign-ups sharply increase

College recruitments efforts seem to pay off, says Bell

Enrollment applications at UW-Stevens Point and at its Wausau and Marshfi eld satellite campuses are significantly up this year.

Laura Bell, UWSP director of enrollment operations, reports that compared to last year in the enrollment cycle for first year students:

_ Applications at UW-Stevens Point total 1,522, an increase of 51 percent.

_ Marshfield campus applications are at 26, an increase of 35 percent.

_ Wausau campus applications total 58, an increase of 48 percent.

All this is happy news for the three campuses that were seeing similar percentage drops in enrollments two years ago.

“Yes, we are very encouraged by the application numbers we are seeing at the three campuses,” Bell said.

The enrollment official said the increase was likely due to a lot of factors, but key, she thinks, is the university’s K-12 recruitment program.

The university, she said, has not only sent recruitment officers to chat with students in high school lobbies, but also sent teachers into high school classrooms to teach classes in college essay writing and financial aid.

An example of the university approach to recruitment will be a Career Expo scheduled for Feb. 7 that will be open to 500 high school students, Bell said.

The official said it took some time to figure out how to market the three campuses successfully.

“We probably had some missed opportunities in the past,” she said.

Bell said the increased enrollment at the UWSP satellite campuses seems to be an across the board phenomenon. All the campuses programs are getting more applications. The campuses offer bachelor degree programs in business and social work plus associate degree programs in health science, human services and environmental science.

She said while UWSP enrollment numbers are up, other regional campuses are experiencing declines.

“You see it all in the UW System,” Bell said.