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• "We saw some folks who had to withdraw from the summer session because of the flooding, just because they didn't know how they were going to be affected," Woodburn said. "With a non-traditional student base, something like that can be really disruptive to lives. So there was probably some carryover from that."
• South Dakota's University Centers in Pierre, Sioux Falls and Rapid City, which deliver courses through the state's public higher education system, have shown steady growth over the past few years.
• But University Center-Sioux Falls served 270 fewer students this past fall, as the University of South Dakota's nursing program moved to the Sanford USD Medical Center campus, said executive dean Mark Lee.
• The school in Vermillion is also transitioning its Sioux Falls nursing program from an associate's degree to a bachelor's degree, which is likely having a short-term effect on pre-nursing enrollments, he added.
• Lee said if the center adjusted for the move, it would have shown an enrollment loss between 1 percent and 2 percent.
• The dean says the school is looking into more education and science courses, as well as more undergraduate options.
• University Center-Sioux Falls was created to serve residents of the state's largest city, who faced 60-mile drives on Interstate 29 to get to either South Dakota State University or University of South Dakota. People working in the city wanted a local site where they could work toward degrees, yet South Dakota was the only state whose largest city didn't have a public university presence, Lee said.
• The center began offering classes on leased space on the Southeast Technical Institute campus.
• "Clearly there was pent-up demand, because enrollment growth was really quite (Continued on page 16)
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