ECC enrollment dips for 3rd semester

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Updated: April 3, 2012 1:57AM

ELGIN — Enrollment is down slightly for the third straight semester at Elgin Community College.

But “We knew that was coming,” President David Sam told the Elgin Community College 509 Board of Trustees Tuesday night.

The college’s enrollment this spring semester is 11,612 students, according to numbers counted last week on the 10th day of class, when official enrollment is recorded.

That’s a slight decline from the 11,811 students at the start of the fall semester in September and 11,943 during the spring 2011 semester.

It is 331 fewer students, or a 2.8 percent decrease, from the same time last year, according to the college.

That number still will go up, as some classes start later in the semester, Sam noted.

And, he said, “For the last several semesters, we’ve had about 11,000 students, and that’s remarkable.”

Those numbers have been in decline after three semesters of record-breaking enrollment at Elgin Community College. It hit its highest on record — 12,219 students — at the start of the 2010-11 school year.