RICHMOND, Va. – With more Virginians seeking affordable education choices or looking to build new skills for jobs in today’s tighter economy, Virginia’s Community Colleges are projecting a 13.7 percent year-over-year increase in enrollment this fall, according to preliminary student data reports from the first week of classes.
Community college officials expect record enrollment for the 2009-2010 academic year. Preliminary data indicates that 99,249 full-time equivalent students are enrolled in credit courses. That is an increase of 11,936 new FTE students over the same period last year.
Early reports show that enrollment is up at each of the 23 schools that make up the Virginia Community College System. That includes a 31 percent gain at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville; 20 percent at Tidewater Community College in Norfolk; 16 percent at John Tyler Community College in Chester; and 15 percent at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap.
“We are serving more students than ever before, which is requiring some innovation in how we address Virginia’s unmet needs in higher education and workforce training,” said Dr. Glenn DuBois, chancellor of Virginia’s Community Colleges. “At the same time, it has never been more important to preserve the fragile public funding that community colleges depend on to operate.”
The reasons for the significant enrollment gains include the affordability of community college, where tuition and mandatory fees cost about a third of average tuition at Virginia’s public four-year universities, and increases in Virginia’s overall population. More students also are looking to build new job skills as the nation prepares for economic recovery, and the new 9/11 GI Bill is supporting military veterans who have served since Sept. 11, 2001 with generous benefits, such as upfront tuition, a living allowance and book stipend. Veterans can transfer those education benefits to their spouse or children.
With record enrollment projections, Virginia’s Community Colleges will be leveraging its new Virginia Education Wizard (www.VaWizard.org) to help serve higher student volumes. While one-on-one student services are available on each campus, the Wizard serves as an innovative tool that makes it easier for students and parents to explore career choices and find resources to pay for college. Launched in March, the Wizard is a one-stop resource that brings together real-time information that gives users tailored, on-demand academic and career coaching.
Since the Wizard launched, the site has attracted more than 130,00 unique users, who visited more than 160,000 times. Most visitors spend over five minutes at the site. Of those visitors, more than 22,000 people created profiles, with just over half of those already affiliated with Virginia’s Community Colleges – mostly as students.
The community college system now is partnering with organizations such as the Virginia Department of Education, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the Education Credit Management Corporation and the Virginia 529 College Savings Plan to develop an expanded version of the Wizard for use beginning in middle school.
About the Virginia Education Wizard
The Wizard guides users from finding a career to earning the right job credentials or preparing for continued education:
Careers: Users can take Interest and Values assessments to find careers that match their interests. They also can explore a specific job and get real-time details about the demand for those jobs and local salaries.
Programs and Majors: The Wizard details programs across Virginia’s Community Colleges, including majors and careers. Users can investigate courses offered across the state – or just those at their nearest campus.
Paying for College: Users can find out what they can expect to pay at different colleges, then get estimates on how much financial assistance they might receive. The site also details scholarships available solely for community college students.
Transfer: The Wizard outlines pathways to four-year degrees, including guaranteed admission to 25 Virginia institutions. The tool plans, tracks and prompts necessary steps for easy transfers.
Registering with the Virginia Education Wizard is easy. The Wizard’s life-like online guide, Ginny, helps users build their profiles, which the site then uses to tailor information according to users’ interests. Users can create their profiles in a few quick steps that take less than 5 minutes.
Virginia’s Community Colleges developed the proprietary Wizard with $2.5 million in federal funds. Programming was completed by Richmond-based Chmura Economics & Analytics and internal IT professionals at Virginia’s Community Colleges. The career and jobs features draw in real-time market data pulled from Chmura Economics & Analytics.
About Virginia’s Community Colleges: Created more than 40 years ago, Virginia’s Community Colleges are 23 individual schools located on 40 campuses across the Commonwealth. Nearly half a million students take classes at one of Virginia’s Community Colleges. Together, the colleges enroll more than two-thirds of the total public undergraduate population in Virginia. For more information, please visit myfuture.vccs.edu.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Jeffrey Kraus
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Relations
804.819.4949 / 804.426.6277 (cell)
jkraus@vccs.edu
Jon Newman
The Hodges Partnership
804.788.1414 / 804.357.4871 (cell)