Oklahoma City Community College is losing more students. This semester alone, the school lost 406 individual students, school officials told members of the Board of Regents last week.

So far, 264 full time students, and 142 part time students are no longer enrolled at OCCC. In addition, the school is down 84 new students and down 523 returning students.

Schools officials believe that the majority of students could not attend because of financial problems.  Because of this drastic decline of enrollment, OCCC regents said they would be putting forth their very best effort to reach out to those students that may need some extra help.

Members of the board recognized the unfortunate death of one member of the OCCC community, Alejandro Rendon Sanchez. His widow, Teresa Rendon, continues to raise thousands of dollars in scholarship money for promising latino students who attend OCCC. In his honor, the school’s community room will be named after him.

Vice President Greg Gardner said the college is launching a new program called Subaru You. OCCC could be receiving sponsorship of mechanical engineering through the Subaru car company.

New programs aren’t the only thing changing soon at OCCC.

Currently, an updated version of a text bot that can answer questions students may have about OCCC, is being developed. This technology will be used assist the schools recruitment of students.

Future and current OCCC students can look forward to texting any questions they may have about the school, instead of calling to receive those answers.

The computer program set up to receive these questions will respond as if a human was texting back. The goal of this new development is to engage the student as well as create an easy and convenient way for the student to quickly receive answers.

Members of the board also acknowledged the faculty and staff who have gone above and beyond to help a students in need. One specific example that was given contained a student’s constant fight for funds in order to pay for textbooks. The student saw no other option but to drop out of school because he could not afford the books for his classes. However, had it not been for some of OCCC’s outstanding faculty members who stepped in to help, OCCC would have one less student attending classes.