Lake Land College in Mattoon saw a 16.3 percent enrollment increase for fall 2009.

“This is the highest fall semester student enrollment in the history of the college,” said Tina Stovall, Lake Land’s vice president for student services, in a press release.

Lake Land has 6,545 students enrolled this semester.

Each year, about 20 percent of Eastern’s transfer students come from Lake Land. The university had 227 new Lake Land transfers this semester.

“It potentially puts more students in the pipeline for Eastern,” said President Bill Perry.

Although Eastern has not seen a notable drop in enrollment, the influx of community college students is seen as a good sign for Eastern’s future.

“I think it’s a sign that people are investing in their education,” Perry said.

Rita Pearson, transfer coordinator and assistant director of admissions, sees it as a future investment in Eastern.

“We’re projecting we’ll see some increases, but it’s hard to gauge what that’s going to be because of the economy,” Pearson said.

Of Lake Land’s current students, 2,041, or 31 percent, are enrolled in transfer programs.

Lisa Shumard-Shelton, media specialist at Lake Land, said, “I can tell you about 64 percent of our students who do transfer choose Eastern.”

Perry said the university has a “very strong relationship institutionally between Lake Land and Eastern.”

Eastern has program articulation agreements with community colleges across the state. Pearson said the agreements are transferable degree programs that will fit Eastern’s curriculum.

“It’s developing a transfer guide to plan what they’ll take at the community college and what they’ll take here in order to graduate in four years,” she said.

Some of the programs involve taking general education classes at the community college and major classes here, but others have students filling their general requirements after transferring, especially in more technical and specialty fields.

“It’s kind of an upside-down degree,” Pearson said.

Eastern has taken steps to keep community college students transferring in.

Eastern’s general education has conformed to the Illinois articulation initiative standards. This is an agreement between more than 100 Illinois colleges that standardizes general education courses as a package, according to the Illinois transfer assistance Web site.

The program is designed to assist students who know they are going to transfer to a four-year college but have not figured out which.

Eastern gives lists of transferable classes to potential students when they graduate high school to help make the eventual transition easier. Transfer advisers also meet with students at community colleges to discuss course plans.

“We like to say we’re the most transfer-friendly school in the state,” Pearson said.

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or seruholl2@eiu.edu.