University of Hawaii Maui College Associate Professor Michael Takemoto in January remotely teaches an Art 101, Introduction to the Visual Arts. This fall semester the college has seen a 9.3 percent decline in enrollment. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

University of Hawaii Maui College’s enrollment dropped 9.3 percent this year compared to last year for the largest drop in the UH system, according to information released this week by the university. 

The next highest drop came at UH-Hilo, which saw an 8.2 percent decrease. 

Overall, enrollment at UH’s 10-campus system decreased by 2.8 percent or 48,373 this year compared to the 49,773 students last year.

But in a news release, UH said one reason for the decline in total enrollment is the “record high on-time” graduation rates for first-time, full-time freshmen at seven of UH’s 10 campuses. The number doesn’t include UH-MC. 

UH-MC Chancellor Lui Hokoana said in an email this week that “addressing the enrollment drop at UH-MC continues to be the number one priority for us. The pandemic created many barriers to education for our incoming and continuing students.”

“Forced to move online, many of our students were not prepared for it and performed poorly, most significant for our recent high school graduates. This caused a drop in our retention — meaning students did not re-enroll,” Hokoana explained as one reason for the drop. 

Another reason for the decline, Hokoana said, is that the college started the semester with a schedule that offered 70 percent of courses face-to-face. 

But as there was low enrollment in those courses, the percentage of in-person courses went down as the courses were converted to online due to the lack of students, he said. 

In turn, “this meant some students did not enroll because they wanted a face-to-face course modality,” he said. 

At UH’s seven community colleges, there was drop of 4.2 percent in enrollment compared to a year ago. There are currently 23,409 credit students enrolled. 

Enrollment fell by 0.4 percent nationally at community colleges, according to preliminary data. 

Public two-year colleges across the country saw about a 23 percent decline in enrollment from 2018 to 2022. 

UH reported its community colleges experienced a 12.7 percent decline over the same period.

Overall, Hokoana said the college is addressing retention by “fine-tuning our student support services — developing interventions early on to assist students in real time when they need it so they don’t drop out.”

The college is also developing more hybrid courses that allow for students to be face-to-face and online, and it is creating an enrollment management office with two new hires who will lead outreach and recruitment efforts for UH-MC.

Hokoana acknowledged that lower enrollment does affect the school’s budget but said that “during the pandemic we rightsized Maui College in preparation to re-imagine higher education for Maui Nui post pandemic. For now, we are in a strong financial position.”

“We hope to complete our strategic planning by the end of the year and implement it in service to Maui Nui,” he said.

Even with enrollment down, UH-MC did have bright spots.

Its on-time graduation is up 12.7 percent and its success rate, including students who transfer to four-year schools, is 18.1 percent.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.