State Sen. Kai Kahele of Hilo wants the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s enrollment to exceed 5,000 students in 10 years.
State Sen. Kai Kahele of Hilo wants the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s enrollment to exceed 5,000 students in 10 years.
Kahele, who chairs the Senate’s higher education committee, announced his enrollment goal Wednesday during a two-hour, town hall meeting on campus. About 100 people attended.
Preliminary figures show 3,446 students were enrolled Aug. 22 at UH-Hilo, a 4.3 percent drop compared with the prior year and the fifth consecutive year enrollment has decreased.
“It’s not a secret, (enrollment) is a major challenge we face,” Kahele told attendees of the meeting, in which he spoke about the issue at length. “I don’t think using the word hemorrhaging is an exaggeration … the existence of the university is to educate students, and if we’re not putting students in seats, we’re not even doing our core function.”
Kahele’s own enrollment goal exceeds the goal outlined in UH-Hilo’s current enrollment plan, which targets 3,830 students to be enrolled by 2020. Kahele previously called that goal “disappointing” and said it didn’t go far enough.
This year’s enrollment decline was largely among continuing students, which decreased from 2,384 on Aug. 22, 2016, to 2,227 last week.
Kahele said many of the continuing students who did not return were out-of-state, first-time freshmen. He said about 25 percent of first-time freshmen systemwide do not return for their sophomore year. UH-Hilo did not have campus-specific data available by press time Thursday.
Kahele floated several ideas during the meeting, including starting a community mentoring program that would pair local families with new, nonresident students.
“We know that students who come from the mainland, if we don’t touch them or don’t connect them to Hawaii, they’re not going to come back,” he said.
Kahele said he also plans to visit Hilo high schools this fall to help recruit students and wants more island students to fill out financial aid applications. He said only a small fraction of public school graduates enroll at UH-Hilo.
“We have Waiakea High School right across the street,” Kahele said. “ … We’re not even getting 10 percent of those students. This is where we need to start.”
His ideas garnered some nods, though some also expressed concerns. An attendee who identified herself as a nontraditional Hawaii Community College student questioned efforts she said seemed geared heavily toward out-of-state students.
“What about our own students?” she asked. “We need to clean up our own back yard before we go clean up someone else’s.”
UH-Hilo Director of Admissions Zachary Street added many resident students purposely attend college elsewhere to experience something new.
“I think we have to accept that’s an option for many students but (we need to) make sure we’re an affordable and enticing option … for those who are going to come,” Street said. “ … We should never want a student going somewhere else because they didn’t know about us or couldn’t afford it or we didn’t have the right programs.”
The meeting kicked off Kahele’s statewide higher education tour, during which he said he plans to visit all campuses in the UH system. Kahele said he’ll visit HCC and UH-Hilo on Oct. 11. He said he’ll visit the North Hawaii Education and Research Center and HCC’s Palamnui campus Oct. 12.
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.