SWCC housing fills more quickly than ever

With Southwestern Community College (SWCC) enrollment on the rise again and a larger number of students wanting or needing to live on campus, the demand for more housing options is becoming urgent.

Housing overflow

It's no surprise SWCC's on-campus housing, especially the apartment-style dorms, are a major attraction for students considering the college. This year, the dorms were completely full by June 1.

"We have seen a trend in recent years where our housing is filled, but this is the first year housing has filled this early," said Beth Kulow, SWCC dean of student services.

With the number of beds doubled up in the apartment-style rooms and the number of students who have had to locate off-campus housing, Kulow said the college could definitely use another residence hall.

"It's a great problem to have," said Tom Lesan, SWCC vice president of economic development.

The housing wait list this year started at about 38 students. There were 19 left on the list as of last week. New residence halls were going to be further off in SWCC's future, but this need for more housing as soon as possible led SWCC's board of directors to add two more dorm buildings to its current five-year facilities plan. The two halls, tentatively slated for 2016 and 2020, are simply plans as of now – nothing has been approved yet.

"I would love to have a new residence hall every year," Kulow said. "We analyze our data to make sure we'll be able to have occupancy in the hall, and obviously cost and state aid are significant factors in determining what we actually do with residence halls."

Kulow encourages incoming students who still need to secure housing to visit the Creston Chamber of Commerce website to find rental properties.

Enrollment  increasing

Though SWCC's enrollment dropped slightly during the 2013-2014 academic year, it jumped back up in 2014-2015 to what it was before the decline: more than 2,100 students.

"Our enrollment typically trends with the economy, so when the economic recession took place, our enrollment skyrocketed," Kulow said. "The (enrollment) trend has been up lately, and we hope it continues."

An official headcount for the upcoming fall semester will be taken Sept. 15, and then Kulow will have an idea what the total enrollment will be for the 2015-2016 year.

"If enrollment is up this fall, we have such a good retention rate that it's obviously going to be up in the spring as well, and we'll end up with a high enrollment for the year," she said.

While the number of students graduating high school has decreased dramatically in Area 14 – which consists of eight counties, including Union and Adair – Kulow said enrollment has remained high.

"We always focus on every student who would like to come to Southwestern," she said. "But we have strengthened our focus in this area as we know we have to try harder to get those students because there are less of them."

Last year, 17.8 percent of the graduating seniors in Area 14 chose SWCC.

"I anticipate that to be a lot higher this coming year because we have a lot of local kids who have elected to move into the residence halls, whether they're from Creston, Afton, Orient," Kulow said. "Typically, these students would commute or maybe choose to go to Iowa, Iowa State or UNI, but with the rising cost of education, (SWCC) is a much more affordable option."

Keeping enrollment high

With the number of area graduating seniors decreasing and students having so many choices for college, SWCC faculty must be proactive in improving its academia and athletics to keep increasing enrollment.

"We are very inventive," Kulow said. "We do everything from figuring out what the latest social media network is, so we can contact students, to regular advertisements."

Athletics are becoming a bigger deal at SWCC, with sports shooting added during the 2013-2014 year, a new golf coach who started in June and bowling returning this fall.

One of SWCC's newest extracurriculars is the psychology club, formed during the 2014-2015 year by Pyschology Instructor Tim Leonard and a student.

"Everything we do on campus really wraps around our strategic plan," Kulow said. "When we think about adding or changing something, we always have (increasing enrollment) in the back of our minds."