Enrollment Soaring at Technical College
Job Placement is Primary Goal of Most Students
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By ERIKA CAPEK The Brunswick News: High unemployment and workers’ needs for new skills are helping to drive up enrollment at Altamaha Technical College in Glynn County.
The Brunswick News: High unemployment and workers’ needs for new skills are helping to drive up enrollment at Altamaha Technical College in Glynn County.
Enrollment at the state school, which is temporarily sharing space at Golden Isles Career Academy, has grown from 388 students in the January through March winter quarter of 2010 to 487 students in the current winter quarter, an increase of 25 percent.
Another 25 students will be added when a commercial truck driving program that operates on a different schedule than the rest of the school starts, said Lorette Hoover, president of Altamaha Technical College. “We’ll easily have more than 500 students (winter quarter),” she said.
The anticipated 512 students will boost winter enrollment 32 percent over the previous winter. By the time the current college year ends, Hoover expects to have a combined enrollment – counting each quarter as a separate enrollment unit – of 1,100 to 1,200 students. That could be as much as a 43 percent increase over the 840 students of the previous year.
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Having a technical education makes people very employable, Hoover said. When the economy slows down, many people return to college to improve
their educational skills, either for their current jobs or for new careers.
The jump in enrollment can also be attributed to more people being aware of what the technical college has to offer, as well as the range of 45 training programs there, such as culinary arts, welding and medical assistant. The most popular programs include business and office technology, cosmetology, criminal justice and nursing.
Late this summer, the Glynn County campus will expand its offerings with a paramedics program.
“Most of our students are non-traditional,” Hoover said. “They are adults with families, trying to pay the rent or the mortgage. They’re balancing
an awful lot,” she said. “Getting a job is most of our students’ primary goal,” Hoover said. Others will go on to further their educations. “To me, a technical college is a great blending of academic skills and occupational akills," she said.
Our graduates are guaranteed, which is something very important to our employers.” The college guarantees that a graduate has the skills that are part of a program guide. A graduate who an employer finds is lacking in a skill can be retrained for free. During the past 2009-2010 school year, 96.7 percent of Altamaha Technical College graduates found work.
Students seeking new job skills typically complete certificate programs in six months or less, while earning a technical diploma usually takes at least a year. A full-time student working toward an associate degree will take two years.
Altamaha Technical College will have its own building in Glynn County by 2013, college officials say. The facility will be built adjacent to the Glynn County School System’s career academy at 4404 Glynco Parkway. The college also has campuses in Jesup, Baxley, Hazlehurst and Kingsland. It serves students from seven counties – Camden, Glynn, McIntosh, Appling, Jeff Davis, Long and Wayne.
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