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Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) is expecting record enrollment for its six campuses when classes begin this week, said DMACC President Rob Denson.

As of Aug. 19, DMACC had about a 22 percent increase in enrollment over the previous year, said Denson, who attributed the enrollment hike to increases in three categories of students: laid-off workers returning to college, military veterans and recent high school graduates.

DMACC would see an approximate increase of 6,800 students to a total near 37,750, if it has 22 percent more students than the 30,949 who enrolled last year.

“When the economy first went south, we weren’t seeing a lot of laid-off workers coming back, and that is kind of normal as they try to get their life back together,” Denson said. “But now it has been long enough we are seeing more and more of them coming back to school.”

The college, which generally has enrollment increases between 6 and 10 percent each year, has seen an increase in enrollment every year since 2000, and the 22 percent figure should come down a bit, Denson said.

“We’ve still got another week to settle things out, but I know we have a few students that applied to two or three different places, so they may decide to go someplace else,” Denson said.

The college, however, was still getting 200 applications per day, Denson said.”I think it is pretty safe to say we are going to have record enrollment.”

DMACC is making adjustments for the increase by boosting average class sizes from between 17 and 19 to a little more than 20. It also is trying to fill up the afternoon between 3 and 6 p.m., a traditional “dead zone” for community colleges, Denson said. At DMACC’s Urban campus, the college converted space that previously housed a day-care center into classroom space.