Enrolment Up at UNBC
Prince George, B.C. – More students have chosen UNBC as their place of study this year over last.
As of October 15, UNBC says enrolment is up 6% (an earlier calculation on Sept. 30 showed a 3.9% increase).
New undergraduate registrations are up 19.6% from last year (995 to 1,191) and the number of self-declared Aboriginal students increased by 17.8% from 297 to 350. In total, there are 3,432 students enrolled at UNBC.
It’s great news for a school that has once again led Maclean’s rankings as the top primarily undergraduate post-secondary school in the country this year.
Interim VP academic and provost Dr. Dan Ryan attributes the success partially to Maclean’s, but to other reasons as well.
“The high quality of instruction – we do have great faculty here. So, they feed into that number one ranking,” says Ryan. “There’s also been a renewed effort here at the university to ensure that our processes in place are student centred or student friendly.”
He says that includes a strong performance from the school’s recruitment office.
“Making that effort to help students know about us, but also help them make the transition to high school to being registered here at UNBC.”
Ryan admits small class sizes are a draw as well.
“They’re huge. I’m not sure I can answer exactly how big a draw they are – but when the students get here, that’s one of the big things they appreciate about UNBC. They actually get to know their faculty; they get to work with them,” he says.
“Rather than a much bigger school where they may not see a faculty member until their final year or graduate school. So, it’s an area where a small university like UNBC, in terms of our enrolment, we punch well above our weight.”
*Editor’s note: the last line of this story has been corrected to read “we punch well above our weight.” A previous version read “we punch well about our weight.“*
Comments
Aborigional enrollment certainly pretty low, considering the high population in the North… WHY is that?? Some institutions consider life experiences accepptable, or are we more into gettin more forgien student than our Canadian citizens??? thought this instutuion was made for the North for the North.
I’ve witnessed a lot more first nations working in trades, construction and heavy equipment operation..(Which UNBC doesn’t hold programs for.) As well CNC and North West Community College are bringing in more programs closer to home in outlying communities that are relevant to the local economy demands. Online (distance learning) programs are also becoming extremely popular eliminating the need to travel.
The aboriginal population of the greater Prince George area (the census canada census agglomeration which basically includes the RDFFG region) was 11% in the 2006 census.
350 aboriginals (self reported only) is an enrolment of over 10% of the 3,432 enrolled. The UNBC web site has a page for the First Nations Centre which states: “As a percentage of the student population, there are more aboriginal students at UNBC than any other university in BC”
So what do you consider as “pretty low”.
Damn “forgien” students taking up space in all our “instutuions”. I guess that’s what happens when you are “from the north from the north”
Any increase in student numbers is a good news story. Enrolments at UNBC have been flat for a number of years.
Foreign students pay for their own tuition and are not funded by the BC Government, so a foreign student would pay in the area of $12000.00 as opposed to a Full Time Equivalent Canadian student who would pay somewhere in the area of $5000.00 tuition.
this is exactly why foreign student enrollment is up because more spaces are allotted for them…because there is more bang for the buck.
Why do you say that spaces are allotted for international students and why do you think that any such allotment reduces the number of seats available for others?
I did not see anything in the article to indicate that foreign students had increased at UNBC.
Canada is trying to increase international students to double the current rate.
One of the indicators of a good quality university is the percentage of international students.
There is no shortage of space for students at UNBC. The place is still under utilized as per the provincial government capacity statement for the University.
The University has to retain these new students. Poor decisions concerning the food services, course availability ( many professors seem to think it is acceptable to force the students to take 5 or 6 years to get a degree due to not offering the needed classes ) and the endless amounts of fees which have to be paid in full even if you are a part time student are all issues to be addressed.
“many professors seem to think it is acceptable to force the students to take 5 or 6 years to get a degree due to not offering the needed classes”
Would that determination not be made by the registrar’s office, senate, board of governors?
For instance, I know that graduate courses for teachers in the region who want to move up in their salary step system are not all available every year. The demand is simply not there.
Going to uni or the college is like buying a new car, the price you first see winds up being much more after all the additional fees.
No doubt..Text books up to $250 and more in some cases..
I wonder about he average age of the students in stream at UNBC? I bet they are on the high end of university demographics. I am sure this plays into things like the high rankings as well.
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