Enrollment

For the first time in four years, enrollments are up in Baltimore's Roman Catholic elementary and high schools, which grew faster than the archdiocesan school system as a whole, according to statistics being released today.Enrollment at the 39 elementary and secondary schools in the city increased by 2.6 percent this school year to reach 10,891 -- an important surge for city schools at a time when the Archdiocese of Baltimore is gearing up to lobby once again for public funding.Throughout the archdiocese, meanwhile, overall enrollment in 101 Catholic schools increased by about 750 students -- or 2.1 percent -- bringing the total to nearly 36,000 students.

When Howard County's incoming tide of elementary schoolchildren begins to subside in a few years, officials expect the next enrollment wave to hit middle schools -- creating issues that are already sparking disagreement. One involves the same dilemma the county faces with elementary schools -- when and whether to redistrict children from crowded outlying districts to Columbia's schools, where enrollments are dropping. With elementary school populations set to peak in 2004, county officials are starting to think about the next predicted peak -- 2007 in middle schools.

Howard County's highly praised attempt to provide low-cost, preventive medical care for uninsured residents is off to a slower than expected start. Only about 200 people have joined since enrollment in Healthy Howard began last Oct. 1, county health officer Dr. Peter L. Beilenson said, falling short of the admittedly ambitious goal he set of signing up 2,000 members in the program's first year. "Enrollment is not where I hoped it would be," Beilenson admitted under critical questioning at a recent county council budget hearing.

An expectation of 868 more students in Carroll County classrooms next September is the driving force behind an 8.53 percent increase in the budget proposal that school board staff unveiled yesterday.The total request for fiscal 1994-1995 is $131 million.Of the new money needed, the schools are asking the county for an additional $8.1 million. The rest would come from federal and state sources."I think, considering the enrollment, the increase we're going to have is very modest," said Ann M. Ballard, board vice president.

Success is continuing to change the face of Anne Arundel Community College.Five years after settling on a 10-year campus master plan, administrators are being forced to revise it because student population and needs are exceeding projections."

Superintendent R. Edward Shilling is expected to propose hiring additional staff and buying more materials and equipment next school yearto accommodate 852 new students.Shilling will release Tuesday his proposed spending plan for fiscal 1993, which begins July 1.The spending plan, still under wraps, is expected to be about $5 million more than the district's current $106 million budget.School officials are hoping to receive about $6.5 million more from the state's aid program APEX -- Action Plan for Educational Excellence.

Nathan Carriere, a recent Wilde Lake High School graduate, originally wanted to go to a college that would allow him to leave home and be on his own. But he quickly realized that this freedom came with a big cost. Carriere decided to save money and ease his parents' angst. He's going to Howard Community College. "It's $8,000 for tuition at four-year colleges," said Carriere, who wants to major in premedicine. "I'm only paying $2,000 here. I'm also saving time with the commuting. It's also less stress for [my parents]

If state lawmakers cut any deeper into the University System of Maryland's budget, its colleges may not be able to enroll as many students as they had planned in coming years, system officials warned yesterday. At a meeting in Adelphi, the Board of Regents asked college presidents to produce estimates by next month of how their schools' future enrollments would be affected by large budget cuts. The 11-campus system's projections call for it to grow by 14,000 to 20,000 full-time students in the next 10 years, mainly because of the demographic phenomenon known as the "baby boomlet" or "baby boom echo."

Baltimore County students will be able to jump-start their college careers while still in high school and finish college a year early through a cooperative venture of the county schools, the Community Colleges of Baltimore County and three state universities.The Three-Year Baccalaureate Program, announced yesterday at county school headquarters in Towson, will save qualified high school seniors time and money by allowing them to take up to 12 college credits before graduation.Students can earn the equivalent of a two-year degree one year after graduation -- with two summer sessions -- and then transfer to four-year schools as juniors.

The corridors were highly polished, the walls freshly painted, and the six-step registration process was mapped out in big black numbers. But the most important change at the New Community College of Baltimore last week proved to be the steady stream of students who passed by its newly manicured lawns to plunk down money for courses.The two-year college, shunned by city residents who paid money to study at competing institutions for most of the 1980s, was taken over by the state last year in a final attempt to improve it or close it. Last week, officials reported that enrollment has increased for the first time in seven years.