(Estherville)– Iowa Lakes Community College continues to see strong enrollment numbers. College President Scott Stokes says from fall 2022 through fall 2024, the college has seen an average enrollment increase of 2.5 percent…
“You know, over the last three years we’ve actually seen our head count increase by about 189 students and our credit hours the past three years have gone up, to about, it’s increased by about 1,500 students. We have some particular programs that we’ve seen some very nice increases in. Associate Degree Nursing is up, our A S Transfer Degree is up, Accounting, Auto Tech and Power Sports are up. Our Aviation Program has seen big increases from fall of ’21 we were at 33 students and this fall we’re at 93. And with that we’ve actually opened up a satellite location in Spencer, so we have our freshmen students in Spencer this year and our returning students are in Estherville. We’ve done everything we can to accommodate and continue to bring in more students for that program rather than decide to put a capacity limit on that. So far it’s working well.”
Iowa Lakes offers over 60 nationally recognized degrees, certifications and pre-professional programs. Students can also pursue 2-year transfer degrees aligned with Iowa Regents Universities. In addition, Stokes says Iowa Lakes continues to have graduation, success and persistence rates that are above state averages…
“We’re above the state average and we’re doing everything we can to continue to increase those. We want every student that comes to Iowa Lakes to have a great experience and we ultimately want them to walk across the stage and get their degree with us. We want them to be Iowa Lakes graduates. This past year we hired three professional academic advisors and they’re going to be individuals who are focused on assisting students getting on the right pathway and staying on the pathway and seeing what their pathway is to graduation and hopefully helping them remove any barriers that there are. We’re above the state average but we want to keep doing everything we can to get that graduation rate up and our success rate.”
Stokes says Iowa Lakes also is proud of their 15-to-one student-to-faculty ratio.
