COC ENROLLMENT INCREASES BY 6.2%.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

College of the Canyons enrolled 6,395 students this semester, a 6.2 percent rise that one administrator attributed to new weekend classes that attracted greater numbers of minority and female students.

For the term that began Aug. 21, the college signed up 375 more students than in the fall semester last year, according to a campus census released Wednesday.

Of the 3,736 women and 2,659 men who enrolled as students, 63.3 percent are white, a significant drop in the proportion of white students, said Nancy Mattice, assistant dean of institutional development at COC.

``Our student body is becoming more and more racially and ethnically diverse,'' Mattice said.

Mattice said end-of-semester figures from December illustrate the shift. ``(At the end of) fall 1995, our student body was 69.4 percent white,'' she said.

The campus census was taken Monday. Every student, whether enrolled in only one class or carrying a full academic load, was counted, said college spokeswoman Sue Bozman.

The college uses enrollment figures to decide what new courses to offer in the spring semester.

``Probably the biggest reason for the increase was the weekend college. We have 501 students enrolled in Saturday classes,'' Mattice said.

She attributed enrollment growth also to the state Legislature's lowering the $50-a-unit class fee that had been charged to students who already hold bachelor's degrees. All California community college students now pay $13 per unit.

``I think the fact that the extra fee is no longer in place has encouraged students to return,'' Mattice said. Paying $150 for a three-unit course ``was a real problem,'' she said, for many students with bachelor degrees.

Most of the fall students at COC - 4,400 - are part-timers, while 1,995 are full-time students, Mattice said.

Enrollment figures this fall are the second largest in the 1990s. The peak was 6,518 in 1992 and the low point came with 5,954 in the fall of 1994, when students were still repairing property damage and getting their lives back together after the Northridge Earthquake, Mattice said.

The state Legislature passed a series of enrollment fee increases to help offset California's fiscal crisis. Before 1984, community colleges were free to California residents. In 1984, the state started charging students $5 per unit. In the fall of 1991, the enrollment fee was increased to $6 per unit. In 1993, the fee was increased to $10 per unit for undergraduate students and $50 per unit for students with bachelor's degrees in the spring semester, and went up to $13 per unit for undergraduates in the fall of '93. The fee has since been leveled at $13 for all students.