The University of Hawai'i System reported a total enrollment of 50,952 students across 10-campuses, breaking the previous record enrollment for the spring semester set in 1995.

University officials are attributing the record enrollment at its campuses to the sliding economy and people seeking additional training to increase their job prospects.

"We always say that enrollment tends to be counter-cyclical to the economy, and I think it's really playing itself out this time," said Linda Johnsrud, vice president of Academic Planning & Policy for UH.

"I think what we've got are people who are either underemployed or have lost their job who have decided to come and get education and training," she said.

Compared with spring 2008, UH's preliminary enrollment figures increased by 2,706, or 5.6 percent. It's the second straight year that enrollment has increased after two years of decreases in 2006 and 2007.

Spring enrollment increased at all of the UH campuses except the flagship UH-Manoa, which posted a slight decrease of 50 students — 0.3 percent — compared with a total enrollment of 18,818 in spring 2008.

Meanwhile, enrollment in the community colleges rose by 9.4 percent to a total of 27,361.

Lawrence "Bill" Boyd, a labor economist at UH-West O'ahu, said enrollment in college — community colleges in particular — tends to increase when the economy slows.

"Community colleges offer a wide variety of training," Boyd said. "Investment of time in improving future earnings is what is driving the logic."

Boyd also pointed out that community college tuition tends to be relatively inexpensive compared with four-year universities. Community colleges also specialize in training for specific professions or jobs, he said.

The economy is forcing people to consider their earning prospects and leading many to seek more training, he said.

"If I spend my time working right now, I won't get anything. But if I spend my time going through a community college program, it may lead to a job and longer lifetime earnings. If you do that simple cost benefit analysis, it makes perfect economic sense," he said.

Johnsrud said the flat enrollment at UH-Manoa, coupled with the swelling enrollment at the community colleges, can be attributed to better transfer policies that allow students to start at a community college and later transfer to UH-Manoa or another four-year campus. Community colleges tend to be a cheaper alternative for students who are taking general education or prerequisite courses.

"We've really worked hard on our articulation and transfer policies. Students can dual enroll now or they can start at community colleges and know that they can safely transfer. It may well be that students are making that choice," she said.

"We are seeing a higher number of students transferring from the two-years to the four-years," she said.

Increasing enrollment in college also occurs when recent high school graduates discover that job opportunities are slim in the current economy, Johnsrud said.

"The average age is going down slightly, so that tells me that it may well be that we have more young people coming out who find there are less appealing jobs immediately after high school without any additional training," she said.

Susan Lee, director of marketing communications for the community colleges, said that the university has spent the last two years directly targeting working adults through newspapers, television, movie theaters and other advertisements.

The community college system has a relatively small advertising budget of $150,000 a year, Lee said.

"When this whole economy went down, people started getting laid off, it was this particular market that we were targeting. Many of our ads resonated with them," she said.

Leeward Community College experienced the largest increase in the number of students of all UH campuses with 586 additional students, or 10.2 percent, over last year for a total of 6,324.

Maui Community College saw the largest percentage increase of the seven community colleges at 16 percent — 457 students for a total enrollment of 3,309.

UH-West O'ahu experienced the largest percentage increase in enrollment of all UH campuses, with a total of 1,146 students, 18.1 percent or 176 more students, relative to a year ago. UH-Hilo's opening spring enrollment increased to 3,677, with a gain of 232 students, or 6.7 percent, over the previous year.