Chicago (November 3, 2006) – Columbia College Chicago’s explosive enrollment growth continued this fall, with the South Loop institution’s student population growing by 6.1 percent, to a record 11,499. The number includes 10,771 undergraduates, making Columbia the second-largest private undergraduate college in Illinois.
Since 2000, when Dr. Warrick L. Carter became president, the arts and media college’s enrollment has grown by nearly 30 percent.
“Today, Columbia is one of the ‘hot’ colleges at college fairs across the country,” says Mark Kelly, vice president for Student Affairs. “Students flock to our booths because they recognize the value in what the college offers – an outstanding education in the creative disciplines, offered in the heart of one of America’s great cities.”
Kelly attributes Columbia’s success to a number of factors, including its Chicago-Loop location. “We like to tell prospective students that we don’t have a traditional college quad,” he says. “Grant Park is our front yard, and Chicago – with its great music venues, museums, theaters – is our classroom.
“It’s a compelling message.”
In addition, Kelly believes that Columbia’s growing residential student population has dramatically improved the student experience. In the past three years, Columbia’s residential population has grown from 450 to nearly 2,400, making the school one of Illinois’s ten largest private, residential colleges. This year, Columbia received applications from students in all 50 states and more than two dozen foreign countries, with a 17% increase in total applications. This residential growth has transformed the Columbia student experience with Columbia students filling the coffee houses, bookshops, and galleries and restaurants that have recently opened to serve them.
Some 56% of the college’s 2,000 freshmen are living on campus. About 40 percent are from out-of-state, and almost a third are minorities. With an additional 1,504 new transfer students, Columbia’s total new student population is 3,490 – the greatest concentration of young creative talent of any of the nation’s colleges and universities.
Kelly says, “these students are attracted to Columbia because of our singular educational environment including a faculty of working professionals, the breadth and depth of our arts and media curriculum within a liberal arts context, the cultural buzz one finds in our galleries, performance places, and screening rooms, the rich diversity of the student body, and our expectation that our students will graduate with a substantive body of work.
While most colleges boast of their selectivity, Columbia boasts of its generous approach to admissions. Kelly notes that the freshman class includes “valedictorians and high school ‘mavericks’ – incredibly bright and creative students whose skills and talents are not accurately measured by a standardized test, but whose creative accomplishments and passions are palpable.” Kelly argues that “American education is wedded to a narrow interpretation of intelligence and learning. It’s an interpretation that devalues creativity and fails to recognize the skills and talents of creative individuals.”
Columbia is also responding to the national issue of college affordability. Over the past three years, Columbia’s tuition has risen by only 9.5 percent, less than two-thirds of the national average for private institutions and only one-third of the average for public schools over the same period. The college’s tuition - $16,400 this fall – is among the lowest of all private colleges in Illinois and the lowest of all private arts and media colleges in the nation.
To provide additional opportunities for students with limited financial resources, the college has dramatically increased the number of low-income scholarships for students who demonstrate academic or creative merit. For example, this fall 75 Chicago Public High Schools graduates received significant institutional support.
Kelly says that Columbia’s efforts to create a more “student-focused” environment have also contributed to record retention of students who return to continue their coursework at the college.
“Recently,” Kelly says, “the college engaged a national research firm to evaluate our progress in ‘satisfying’ students. The research firm concluded that ‘students at Columbia are significantly more satisfied than students attending peer institutions.’”
The study focused on such areas of student satisfaction as instructional effectiveness, academic advising, campus climate, student centeredness, services, campus life, and diversity.
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