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Enrollment Consultant Hired By Black Hawk College

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Hoping to end a long and costly drop in enrollment, Black Hawk College has hired a consultant. Last week, the board of trustees approved a two year contract with E-A-B Global, based in Washington D.C., for 101,000 dollars.

Vice President for Instruction Amy Maxeiner says EAB will look at how the college recruits and tries to retain its students.

"With declining enrollment we've tried many different things to try to continue to recruit students and sometimes you don't know what you don't know. We're looking to EAB to help us determine what are those things we might be missing, where are our gaps, and how do we fill those gaps."

Maxeiner says college enrollment is declining all across the country due to fewer students graduating from high school.

"Approximately 30 per cent of students in our region, and this is also happening nationally, that don't do any college, go into the military, don't do anything when they graduate. We need help to find those students and insure that they are set up for success as they go on into their profession and career."

Enrollment at the two campuses of Black Hawk College now totals about 60,000 credit hours, which is just half of what it was ten years ago.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois. While a graduate student in the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University), he got his first taste of public radio, covering Illinois state government for WUIS. Here in the Quad Cities, Herb worked for WHBF Radio before coming to WVIK in 1987. Herb also produces the weekly public affairs feature Midwest Week – covering the news behind the news by interviewing reporters about the stories they cover.