WSU Summer Enrollment, Student Credit Hours Increase

PULLMAN, Wash. — Enrollment and the number of credit hours students are taking in this year’s summer session at Washington State University’s Pullman campus showed an increase compared to figures at the same time last year.

A total of 4,971 students were enrolled early on Monday, which was the first day of the second six-week session. This is a 2 percent increase from the 4,874 students who were enrolled at the same time last year. An additional 31 students enrolled during the day.

The number of student credit hours showed an increase of 8 percent from 30,322 last summer to 32,745 this summer.

Linda Schoepflin, director of the summer session, said these numbers mean classes were scheduled better this year. “I’ve been working with faculty over the last three years to schedule classes throughout the day and not in the morning only,” she said. “We’ve also encouraged faculty to offer classes over six weeks or eight weeks instead of over four weeks. Better scheduling allows us to do a better job serving students.”

Other factors that might have contributed to the raising figures could have been the 6.7 percent resident undergraduate tuition increase in the fall and the downturn in the economy, she said.

Schoepflin said she expected enrollment to go down because the majority of financial aid for the summer is in the form of loans and not much is available in terms of work/study or grants. She also thought enrollment for this session might be lower because of the small freshman class of four years ago, Schoepflin said. Enrollment for the summer had shown a small but steady increase since it dropped with almost 300 at that time, she said.

About a third of students who attend WSU in the fall or spring now enroll for summer school, whereas about a quarter of those students used to enroll for summer school before, Schoepflin said.

Most students (92 percent) who enroll for summer session are continuing from previous semesters, she said. Of the 5,002 students enrolled for summer session by Monday afternoon, the majority was seniors (1,804), followed by juniors (1,206), graduate students (900), sophomores (541) and freshmen (276).

Spanish 101, English 101 and classes in communication, mathematics, chemistry, biology, business, and management information systems are popular in the summer, Schoepflin said. In addition, educators use the summer session to enroll in courses for superintendent or principal certification.

“Some students just come every year because they love it,” Schoepflin said. “They say they make new friends in the summer.”

Schoepflin is also organizing the first Summer Cougar Quest, youth camps for junior and senior high school students. The first camp, set for July 22-27, is for grades 7 and 8. The second offering, July 29-Aug. 3, is for grades 9 through 12. During the camps, WSU faculty will be leading workshops on veterinary medicine, mind games and problem solving, engineering and Web page design.

A Summer Cougar Quest Mystery Festival, a week-long “who dunit” day camp for children from grades 4 through 6, is planned for July 23-27.

To register for any of the Cougar Quest camps, contact Schoepflin at 509/335-1235, cougarquest@wsu.edu.

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