Technical college goes against grain

Glynn County enrollment up as schedule confusion hurts other campuses

By MICHAEL HALL
The Brunswick News

The Glynn County campus of Altamaha Technical College is bucking a trend of lower enrollment that has hit other technical schools in Georgia in the first months of their switch to a semester system.

The Technical College System of Georgia, as a whole, has seen more than a 12 percent drop in enrollment during its first ever fall semester. Technical schools in Georgia had operated on a quarter system until this fall.

While combined enrollment at Altamaha Tech’s seven campuses dropped 21.5 percent, school president Lorette Hoover said enrollment at the Glynn County campus increased 6 percent.

That is a good sign for the future, Hoover said, especially because administrators plan to move the technical college out of shared space with the public school system’s Golden Isles Career Academy and onto its own adjacent campus.

Hoover also noted that the college’s rural campuses have been hit harder than its city campuses.

The drop-off in enrollment could be attributed to some students not being aware that classes started Aug. 22 this school year.  Under the old instructional calendar, a new quarter would not have started until October.

“We are getting a lot of calls about registering for classes and they are all a little shocked,” Hoover said.

Administrators expected this to happen, as it did when the University System of Georgia changed to a semester system in 1998.

The drop in enrollment at Altamaha Tech is actually less than what was anticipated, Hoover said. Administrators had anticipated that there would be a 25 percent decline.

“I don’t want to say I’m pleased by the 21 percent drop, but we were prepared for worse,” Hoover said.

The change to the semester system is not the only factor in the decline in students. Cuts in the HOPE scholarship have hurt, as well.

Tuition at technical colleges in Georgia is $75 per credit hour, but cuts to HOPE mean that students now only receive $60.75 for each hour. A student taking a full 15-hour class load could pay as much as $300 more each semester.

In a twist of statistics, Altamaha Tech reports a 28 percent increase in tuition and fees because students who are enrolled are taking more classes for more credit hours, Hoover said.

“Our serious students are becoming more serious,” she said, adding that there is more incentive to finish quickly when students are paying for school themselves.

David Bennes of Camden County is among those students attending Altamaha Tech in Glynn County.

He will graduate after one more semester in the welding program.

He said having more breathing room as a result of the new semester schedule has made the transition easy to handle, despite cuts to HOPE.

“The semester gives us a lot more time to digest everything,” Bennes said.

He’s not alone in that sentiment. Tammy Kehle, a business administration student, said the school has done well in making the switch easy for students. “It is so nice to have a little more time than we did on the quarter system,” Kehle said.

Hoover expects that enrollment will improve as students adjust to cost differences and word spreads about the new schedule.