CONWAY -- Coastal Carolina University has noticed a decrease in the number of freshmen who return for their sophomore year, and the school will hire an N.C. consultant to help officials figure out why.
University trustees meeting Friday approved spending up to $50,000 on the consultant, and Provost Robert Sheehan said it likely will be May or June before a report is complete.
The trustees also directed the university’s finance office in February to present the board with a report on the financial effect of a drop in tuition for in-state students.
Board chairman D. Wyatt Henderson (left) and university president Dave DeCenzo (right) talk during the CCU Board of Trustees meeting Friday.
The school increased in-state tuition by 3.95 percent this year, said Stacie Brown, the school’s vice president for finance and administration.
In-state students currently pay $4,880 for 12-18 hours of courses; out-of-state students pay $10,780.
Changing the amount of tuition will affect other items in the school’s profit and loss accounting and could mean that the trustees will have to make other decisions to make up for revenue lost from lower tuition, Brown said.
The board further approved that in-state students who are members of the S.C. National Guard get a $500 cash award. Out-of-state students in the S.C. National Guard will get the same cash award as well as a $3,500 tuition waiver.
As for freshman retention, Eddie Dyer, the school’s chief operating officer, said the school has seen a 4 percent, or about an 80-student drop in freshmen returning for their sophomore year in the past two years.
Dyer said the drop to about 66 percent retention puts Coastal 4 percent behind the national retention rate of 70 percent.
Sheehan said officials can’t say for sure what’s causing more freshmen to decide to leave school before their sophomore year, but they have some suspicions.
He said the school noticed a number of the dropouts had very low or failing grades in math classes, so the school already is taking steps to combat that.
He has ordered that the number of students in math courses be reduced from a high of 40 to a high of 25, a move that will mean the hiring of more math teachers.
Sheehan said freshman problems in math classes could mean that some high school students aren’t being prepared for college-level mathematics.
He isn’t sure, but wouldn’t be surprised if the economy and the high debt some students incur to attend school also play a role.
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