In the face of a global pandemic, in-person courses are back in session at SUNY Old Westbury but with reduced enrollment levels and fewer in-person course offerings.
According to Director of Institutional Research Courtney Raeford, fully in-person or “traditional” courses currently make up 47% of the total course offerings. In 2019, traditional course offerings made up 85% of all courses.
Raeford says remote courses currently make up 30% of all courses while hybrid courses currently make up 23% of the total course offerings. Hybrid courses made up 10% of all course offerings in 2019 and remote courses made up 5% of course offerings in 2019.
SUNY OW currently has a total of 4,388 students enrolled for courses; a reduction of 690 students when compared to the 5,078 students registered for courses in fall 2020. Despite this reduction, Raeford says that OW has met its semester enrollment goal for fall 2021 by 93%.
According to Frank Pizzardi, director of admissions, the reduction in enrollment levels is not unique to OW. Colleges across the country are also dealing with reductions in student enrollment. National Public Radio found that enrollment at Universities and Colleges across the US fell by nearly 500,000 this fall semester.
Pizzardi says that the pandemic brought unexpected changes to college admissions.
There are many reasons for the lower enrollment levels, most of them being tied either directly or indirectly to the pandemic.
According to Pizzardi, many schools lowered their standards for SAT scores during the pandemic, encouraging students who may not have applied to a particular school prior to the pandemic to do so during the pandemic. Pizzardi believes this may have played a role in reduced enrollment.
While these changes may seem negative when looking at it from a college admissions standpoint; they may have made it easier for students to get into schools they might have never applied to.
OW’s student population includes a significant number of transfer-students, which also saw a decline during the pandemic. According to Pizzardi, “In the past, students who realized they didn’t like their college might transfer to Old Westbury, but during the pandemic, it didn’t matter if they didn’t like their college because they weren’t there anyway, they were remote. They didn’t need to transfer.”
The SUNY vaccine mandate, which required students to be fully inoculated against COVID-19 by September 24th, 2021 or face course de-registration, had minimal impacts on current enrollment rates with OW only deregistering 11 students for non-compliance.
Interim Vice President of Enrollment Services Monica Calzolari, Raeford and Pizzardi agreed that there are many reasons for reduced enrollment levels which are also affecting most colleges. They added that OW is actively working to increase enrollment moving forward. They say OW is looking to increase its outreach efforts and is looking to return to advertising methods that were halted due to the pandemic.
According to Calzolari, OW plans to increase enrollment through in-person advertising of its affordability and close proximity to New York City at local high schools and community colleges. Despite the reduction in enrollment and in-person courses, OW students are now on the path toward pre-pandemic normalcy with the return of in-person classes, dorming, and in-person club events.
