By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

In these days of budget cutting and state fiscal woes, two recent studies and reports offer the University of Hawai'i guidance on the delicate art of increasing revenues while maintaining enrollment growth.

In a wrap-up of the latest news on Distance Learning, Paula Mochida, the university's Special Assistant for Distance Learning, points to remarkable growth in distance education over the past year. Much of the success comes as distance learning pushes deeper into the far reaches of the Neighbor Islands, where students used to be out of luck if they wanted to pursue higher education.

Last year alone there was a 13 percent increase in registration for distance learning classes throughout the public university system, with a "head count" of 5,187 enrollments in a total of 575 classes.

That's like adding a couple of community colleges to the system, in terms of numbers and revenue alone. Mochida estimates that last year about $4.2 million came into the system through these efforts. Tuition for distance learning courses is the same as that at the institution through which the course is offered.

Credit should go to the departments and faculty that have put time and effort into creating these courses, she says. For instance, the College of Education and School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene are even expanding in American Samoa, and the distance learning offerings there include flying professors in as part of the package.

Also part of the distance outreach are courses being offered to correctional institutions through a new program at Leeward Community College.

Mochida is excited as she talks about the potential of distance learning and new ways to create partnerships with Mainland and international schools by creating courses and programs together. Already, the School of Travel Industry Management is working with an institution in Alaska to offer a program in TIM that isn't available there.

"There is all kinds of potential," Mochida said.

Looking back over the system-wide enrollment declines of the 1990s, Mochida said even then there was continual expansion in distance learning courses.

With that in mind, a study by Frank K. Abou-Sayf, director of the Office of Planning and Institutional Research at Kapi'olani Community College, offers perspective on how changes in tuition affect enrollment.

According to Abou-Sayf's research — covering the past 14 years and appearing in the latest Journal of Applied Research in the Community College — while there is some drop-off in enrollment as tuition goes up, something else also happens: Student performance improves as tuition increases.

This suggests, says Abou-Sayf, "that the less serious students are those who tend to either drop out or abstain from enrolling when tuition increases."

The good news, he says, is that tuition increases do not appear to force lower-income students from the system.

"Since financial assistance increases when tuition increases, there is no evidence that points to the fact that low-income students are affected by tuition increases more than other groups," he said.

In looking at boosting revenues, all of this suggests that the university could think of making small tuition increases at the four-year colleges, and ever more forceful expansion into distance learning spheres. That would keep the solid enrollment gains of the past two years, while continuing to rapidly build the tuition base.