Winter Course Enrollments Are Down

By Jada Butler, Rakwan Hedgemond
News Editor, Staff Writer

During winter break, students are able to take extra credits to expedite the process of graduation. But this winter, there aren’t many students signing up for classes. This year, there is a decline in the amount of students that registered for winter courses compared to last year.

The winter session, which runs from Jan. 2 to Jan. 15, offers students the chance to select from over 30 undergraduate courses. Students earn three credits in just ten days, whether to get ahead in their requirements and or to get on track to graduating early. Classes are available in the morning, afternoon, or evening and run Monday through Friday.

Willie Hiatt, associate professor of Latin American history, teaches “The West & World Since 1750” during winter break. “As of right now, only three students have signed up for my class. In the winter of 2016, six students took the same course. Three years ago, I had 17 students,” he said. “My suspicion is that low winter enrollments reflect our overall enrollment decline since 2013,” he continued. In the last five years, there have been freshmen classes of approximately 550 students to the current 701 students; before that time, the university often had classes of more than 800 students, according to Hiatt. “Put simply, we don’t have many students anymore,” he said.

While the enrollment of the incoming freshmen classes seem to be falling, some students opt not to take winter courses. “I wouldn’t take any winter or summer classes because you have to pay for the classes and the housing,” Kelvin Campbell, a senior criminal justice major, said. “The classes are too expensive and it’s a lot harder to cram information in such a short amount of time,” Darwan Simon, a junior health science major and business minor, said.

To take a course during the winter semester, it will cost $875 per credit for undergraduate studies and $1,201 per credit for graduate studies, including a $100 University fee. On top of the cost of credits, if students wanted to stay on campus during the break, they would have to pay extra dorming fees.

The university website offers course descriptions following the Undergraduate Bulletin and the Graduate Bulletin. Both current LIU Post students, new students, and visiting students from other colleges and universities are welcome to enroll into a winter session. Students can choose from undergraduate core courses such as English, history, philosophy, and psychology, or major required courses in economics, art, digital art & design, terrorism and criminal justice. Graduate students are able to select form courses “Special Problems Lab Medicine,” “Critical Issues in Law & Society,” “Terrorism (Trump Presidency & Terrorism),” “Public Policy & Public Choice,” “Special Problems in Political Science” and an independent study.

Information on how to enroll into a winter session or to view the courses, students can go to www.liu.edu/CWPost/Admission/Winter- Sessions/Register.