Fall enrollment figures at Southeast Community College-Beatrice Campus show an 18.8 percent increase over last fall.

A total of 1,176 students are registered for classes, compared to 990 last year at this time.

"It is good to see the campus reach the benchmark of 1,000 students," Campus Director Dennis Headrick said. "At only one other time in the history of the Beatrice/Fairbury Campus has this happened, and honestly, we weren't prepared at that time, and enrollment dropped off."

He said with the addition of facilities, faculty and staff, the campus is now prepared to serve 1,100 students and more in the future.

"Flexibility is a key to higher education these days," he said. "Students want courses offered in a variety of methods and times, so our challenge is to continue to find what those methods and times are."

The enrollment includes students attending classes on campus, taking Internet courses via SCC OnLine, attending classes at other sites via fiber optics and taking telecourses.

Vice President Bob Morgan, who has charge of distance learning courses, said about 300 students are taking at least one course on-line.

"Enrollment in distance learning courses, and especially on-line courses, has been growing rapidly," Morgan said.

Tom Cardwell, dean of student services explained the difficulty of separating on-campus and distance learning enrollment.

"We are estimating that the number of distance learning students is around 321, so that would leave 956 on-campus students," he said. "In reality, this is not clean since we have on-campus students also taking distance learning courses as well, so there is some duplication of count."

A breakdown of the 1,176 total, which is an unduplicated head count, shows that 626, or 53 percent, of the students are registered for at least 12 credit hours, which is considered full time, and 550, or 47 percent, are enrolled for fewer than 12 and are considered part time.

Sixty percent of the total enrollment is female, with slightly less than half considered full time, compared to almost 60 percent of the males enrolled, who are carrying a full-time course load.

A majority of students fall into the undeclared category, meaning they haven't chosen a major. This semester's enrollment shows 428 students, or 36 percent, undeclared as compared to 303, or 31 percent, last year.

Other categories include 26 percent enrolled in academic transfer, with students choosing among humanities, social science, and math and science majors; 18 percent, agriculture; 7 percent, practical nursing; 6 percent, business administration;

4 percent, office technology; and 3 percent, mass media communication.

The vast majority, 865 or 73.5 percent, are from the 15-county area in Southeast Nebraska which SCC serves. Another 201, or 17 percent, are from other Nebraska counties. Ninety-seven students show out-of-state addresses, and 13 are from other countries.

Other states represented are New Jersey, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Hawaii, Oregon, Minnesota and Colorado.

Other countries represented are Brazil, Russia, Korea, United Kingdom, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan, Cameroon, Costa Rica, and Guadeloupe.

"As our community, state and country continue to become more globalized, it is good to see that our students have the opportunity to mesh with students from other countries and cultures and to learn and grow from that opportunity and experience," Headrick said.