2019 Mountain East Tournament

[boatcapt]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

For sure, that's what they advertise. Urbana has a dual-enrollment program with the high schools in their county that allows seniors to take a high school class and receive Urbana college credits for it. If you add the high school kids in, it does make their enrollment appear much bigger.

The 365 number is what they reported to the Dept of Education and is for full time undergrads - traditional college students. Of the 365 full time students, 245 are student athletes.

Edit: BTW - it seems like almost all small schools over-advertise their enrollment. Its definitely a thing. They will throw out a number like 1600 - and it might not be lying. They may have that many people who take one class through the school during an academic year. However, many of those may be high school kids sitting in their high school or a grad student taking a single on-line class. The larger number masks that only 365 kids are actually full time at the school. We all see the larger advertised number that seems healthy and then are surprised when a school goes under.

On-line education is changing how students "consume" college. Not uncommon for a kid to live off campus, attend two "traditional" on-campus courses and then do two on-line. They are not "full time" in the traditional sitting in a class room taking four 3-semester hour courses each semester sense but they are carrying a full course load just the same. These people may not count as traditional full time students but they are full time none the less and are contributing to the colleges bottom line.

[BlueBlood]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

On-line education is changing how students "consume" college. Not uncommon for a kid to live off campus, attend two "traditional" on-campus courses and then do two on-line. They are not "full time" in the traditional sitting in a class room taking four 3-semester hour courses each semester sense but they are carrying a full course load just the same. These people may not count as traditional full time students but they are full time none the less and are contributing to the colleges bottom line.

The example that you give (taking a full course load, some on campus, some online) would be classified as a full time student by DOE standards. In Urbana's case, someone like that would be counted as one of the 365 full time undergrads.

Its the kids/adults taking one or two classes here and there (whether on campus or online) that do not count.

[boatcapt]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

The example that you give (taking a full time workload, some on campus, some online) would be classified as a full time student by DOE standards. Its the kids/adults taking one or two classes here and there (whether on campus or online) that do not count.

Classified as a full time student yes but would this student be classified as a "traditional" on-campus undergrad, would he/she be classified as a part-time on campus student or perhaps a part time on-line student?

This has been more years ago than I care to remember, but back in the day I took a number of "mini semesters" (Univ of MD term). Basically it was 3 credit courses taught in a half semester format. I took two the first term (1/2 a semester) and two the second term for a total of 12 semester hours. Full time student right? WRONG!! Part-time student because I was "only" taking a 6 semester hour work load at a time!!!

I was looking for the DoE data you site and couldn't find it. Closest I got was at the DoE's National Center for Education Studies web site. Only info I could find there for Urbana listed fall 2017 total enrollment at 1,623 and undergrad enrollment at 1,508. Am I just missing the link?

[BlueBlood]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search

Type in any school you want to search. In addition to enrollment, you can see the athletic budget, number of athletic participants, etc. Almost every school will have a lower enrollment than you thought it would have. Schools can be creative in the way they advertise enrollment to the public, but not so much when reporting to Feds.

[boatcapt]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

https://ope.ed.gov/athletics/#/institution/search

Type in any school you want to search. In addition to enrollment, you can see the athletic budget, number of athletic participants, etc. Almost every school will have a lower enrollment than you thought it would have. Schools can be creative in the way they advertise enrollment to the public, but not so much when reporting to Feds.

Ahhhh...OK. Did some digging on what constitutes a full time student. Surprisingly, there is a government definition for that. A lot of confusing language that basically says what we already know. But it DOES exclude "correspondence courses" from the total hours necessary to be classified as a full time student. So that got me wondering if on-line courses are considered correspondence courses by the DoE. Here's were things got really confusing...found plenty of information from colleges having to return aid money because the DoE determined that on-line courses were correspondence courses and therefore did not qualify as part of a student being a full time student. Also plenty of information on the DoE declaring that a schools on-line courses were not correspondence courses.

So would a student who took six semester hours in a class room and six semester hours on-line be a full time student? Seems like the answer from the DoE is a resounding - maybe.

[BlueBlood]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

Ahhhh...OK. Did some digging on what constitutes a full time student. Surprisingly, there is a government definition for that. A lot of confusing language that basically says what we already know. But it DOES exclude "correspondence courses" from the total hours necessary to be classified as a full time student. So that got me wondering if on-line courses are considered correspondence courses by the DoE. Here's were things got really confusing...found plenty of information from colleges having to return aid money because the DoE determined that on-line courses were correspondence courses and therefore did not qualify as part of a student being a full time student. Also plenty of information on the DoE declaring that a schools on-line courses were not correspondence courses.

So would a student who took six semester hours in a class room and six semester hours on-line be a full time student? Seems like the answer from the DoE is a resounding - maybe.

I think that provision is likely in there to exclude the fake schools / diploma mills that have cropped up: the scam colleges you read about in the paper. I think the difference between correspondence courses and online classes is active interaction between instructors and students. I would almost guarantee that any of our colleges discussed on this board offer online interactive classes that feature an instructing and interacting professor, not correspondence courses. I would think that a legit college wouldn't want to risk its reputation by offering correspondence courses. Funny enough, the classes that UNC got in trouble for funneling their athletes through sounds awful close to what is described as a correspondence course

[boatcapt]

Re: 2019 Mountain East Tournament

I think that provision is likely in there to exclude the fake schools / diploma mills that have cropped up: the scam colleges you read about in the paper. I think the difference between correspondence courses and online classes is active interaction between instructors and students. I would almost guarantee that any of our colleges discussed on this board offer online interactive classes that feature an instructing and interacting professor, not correspondence courses. I would think that a legit college wouldn't want to risk its reputation by offering correspondence courses. Funny enough, the classes that UNC got in trouble for funneling their athletes through sounds awful close to what is described as a correspondence course

In 2017 Western Governors University (Some sort of consordium of Western states) was forced to give back over 700 million dollars in federal aid money because their on line courses were ruled correspondence. Faced with the possibility, no matter how remote, of that, I'd probably under report all my info to the DoE!!