WESSON – Copiah-Lincoln Community College officials arepreparing for another school year with expectations of continuedhigh enrollment numbers.

Dr. Jane Hulon, the college’s vice president of instructionalservices, said she expects the upcoming fall enrollment to be levelwith the enrollment of the 2010 fall semester.

“Last fall, we had a district-wide total of 3,799 students,” saidHulon. “We’re expecting a level number this fall, about 3,800students.”

Those numbers reflect strong enrollment numbers that have occurredat all of the state’s 15 community colleges for the past threeyears, said Co-Lin President Dr. Ronnie Nettles.

“Statewide, community college enrollment has increased 30 percentin the last three years,” he said.

Nettles said the huge growth numbers have caused capacity issues atCo-Lin.

“We’ve seen more students in the classroom, more people applyingfor financial aid, a need for more parking spaces, among otherthings,” he said. “Those things are all symptoms of enrollmentgrowth.”

He said that the college has looked and will continue to look atseveral solutions for the growth issues, like hiring a few extrateachers throughout the college district, continuing to add to thegrowing number of adjunct, or part-time, teachers, and even addinga few more parking spaces on the Wesson campus.

“We’re not getting more state money, so we just have to manage itthe best way we can,” said Nettles.

The capacity issues don’t seem to be affecting the college’sacademic successes, as Co-Lin recently celebrated the highestnumber of graduates in college history, said Hulon.

“We had 749 graduates, which is a record number for us,” she said.”That number was up 13 percent from the year before.”

Nettles said the increased number of students is a result of thebad economic situation that’s been hitting the state for severalyears.

“As things improve, enrollment will level off or may evendecrease,” he said. “People will be going back to work, and that’snot a bad thing.”

In the meantime, community colleges will continue to providequality services, said Nettles, and state leaders are looking forways to help them do so.

He pointed to the Mississippi Education Achievement Council, anorganization established by the Mississippi Legislature that isstudying ways to improve the state education achievementrate.

“We fall behind so many other states in that rate,” he said.

Nettles, who is a member of the 23-member panel, said the Council,through its work on the achievement rate, is also helping communitycolleges.

“We’re looking at future funding for community colleges partiallybased on productivity, or how colleges are doing on gettingstudents into the workforce, graduated, or transferred,” hesaid.

He said the Council is also working on ways to help students withtheir educational goals, like waiving graduation fees.

“Those are the types of things the Council is doing,” he said.”They’re beneficial to community colleges.”