Transcripts

TIM POST: There are seats for 5,350 students in this fall's freshman class at the University of Minnesota. Applicants, however, far exceed that number.

WAYNE SIGLER: The Twin Cities campus has received more than 33,000 applications for fall 2009.

TIM POST: The U's Director of Admissions Wayne Sigler says that's 4,500 more than last year at this time, a 16% increase. Sigler cites the economy as one of the reasons. He says more students and their families are considering the cost of tuition as they make their college decision. A year at the U of M costs about $10,000.

WAYNE SIGLER: The cost of the institution is always a major factor for most of us. I think that's especially going to be important this year given the very difficult economic situation our state and our country is facing.

TIM POST: The officials at the Minnesota State Colleges and University system think that also may be the reason behind an increase in fall applications at their schools. It costs about $4,500 a year to attend one of the state's community colleges. At a state university like Saint Cloud State, the tuition bill runs around $7,000. Applications are up 8% in MnSCU's system. That's a total of 68,700 applications, nearly 5,000 more than last year. Anoka-Ramsey Community College received 148 more applications for fall classes this year. Spokesperson Mary Jacobson says more people are looking at community and technical colleges as the economy suffers.

MARY JACOBSON: There are so many people being laid off in our areas. There's people that with some time and they want to improve their skills, even though they want to get back to work, they might want to take a computer course to enhance some of their skills or to look into a complete program.

TIM POST: The country's economic woes could also be behind a decrease in the application count for Minnesota's private colleges. On average, applications for fall are down 2% among the 17 colleges that make up the Minnesota Private College Council. The council's executive director Dave Laird is telling colleges not to worry too much about those numbers.

DAVID LAIRD: 1% or 2% is not a serious deviation from anything.

TIM POST: Laird says the decrease comes after several years of record application numbers at Minnesota's private colleges. At the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth where tuition runs $26,000 a year, applications are down about 2% over last year, but that's still higher than the total from two years ago, and admissions officials are happy about that, especially in this economy. Eric Berg is Scholastica's Vice President of Enrollment Management. Berg says the real enrollment test may still be looming for colleges.

ERIC BERG: We may have a stronger effect and possibly more negative effect to measure with the fall 2010 class than we will for the 2009 class just because a lot of families are willing to sacrifice still to make sure that the students end up where they most wanted to be, where they decided they were going to go to college.

TIM POST: Berg puts less stock in the number of applications colleges receive and is more interested in the number of students who actually attend after being accepted. Minnesota colleges will soon have a better idea of how many students they'll see on campus this fall. May 1 is the deadline at most schools for students to make their intentions known. Tim Post, Minnesota Public Radio news.