Five largest counties drive enrollment at all 3 regent schools

Iowa's five most-populated counties are among the top enrollment producers for all three regent universities, which officials say is an expected pattern.

Proximity clearly is another factor when it comes to enrollment at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, county-by-county enrollment numbers for the past 10 years show.

The UI, ISU and UNI this year all have at least one - and in the case of UNI, three - nearby counties in their enrollment top 10 that the other schools do not have. For the UI, it's Muscatine County. For ISU, it's Boone County. For UNI, Bremer, Cerro Gordo and Buchanan all make the top 10 for total enrollment but aren't on the same list for the UI and ISU.

“Part of it is location, absolutely, We heavily serve northeast Iowa,” UNI Admissions Director Christie Kangas said. “The counties near us are all fairly strong, considering their populations.”

It's likely that when there is overlap of academic programs among the universities, proximity may play more of a role in those situations, Kangas said. UNI's enrollment is 92 percent in-state students, which makes Iowa recruiting important for the school, she said.

“That's our goal - to get out in every county,” she said.

ISU senior Luke Roling grew up a Hawkeye fan in Clinton, in far Eastern Iowa. He chose to go to college in Ames, slightly more than three hours from home, after visiting the campus and liking the feel and the people.

Roling, now ISU's student government president, recalls that of his 18-person class at Clinton's Prince of Peace Prep, he was the only grad to attend ISU. One classmate went to UNI, and eight or nine attended the UI, he said.

“Going to the UI, that's kind of the way my school and other schools in the region went,” the 21-year-old chemical engineering major said. “The four biggest things for me choosing Iowa State were the location, academics, the campus and the people.”

The available academic programs is the No. 1 reason students give for choosing a school, UI Admissions Director Mike Barron said, but proximity - or even a lack of proximity - to home is important to some students, he said.

UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, which conducts an annual survey of college freshmen nationally, reported in 2006 that 18.7 percent of students said living near home was an important reason for choosing their college. Those who said getting away from home was a factor was about 22 percent, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Nearly half of first-generation students chose to attend a college within 50 miles of home, compared with 35.5 percent of students whose parents attended college.

Community colleges act as a pipeline to the universities, which could help boost counties like Muscatine, home of Muscatine Community College, into Iowa's top 10, Barron said. Being within commuting distance is another draw for nearby counties, he said.

ISU draws most of its in-state students from Polk County, home of the Des Moines metro area directly south of ISU's location in Story County, which ranks second on ISU's 2010 enrollment list. For the UI and UNI, their home counties are the top producers, with Polk in second place for both. Linn County ranked third in 2010 for all three universities.

The list of top enrollment-producing counties has changed little over the past decade, but it does reflect population trends within the state.

At the UI, for example, Dallas County, home to some of the fast-growing western suburbs of Des Moines, has been a top 10 enrollment county for the past three years, moving steadily up the list from No. 15 in 2001. Dallas bumped Pottawattamie and Clinton counties, which frequently alternated in the top 10 before.

No Iowa counties sent zero students to the UI, ISU or UNI in fall 2010, though a few had single-digit enrollments. UNI got one student this year from Taylor County and three from Ringgold, while the UI got three from Ringgold and five from Wayne County. ISU's lowest county enrollment also was Ringgold, in far south-central Iowa along the Missouri border, with 15 students.