Community college enrollment soars
JOLIET — Community college enrollment is skyrocketing statewide as more and more unemployed people head back to class and younger people forego going off to four-year institutions to save money.
The Illinois Community College Board announced last week that fall full-time equivalency enrollment hit an all-time record and the fall head count reached a 27-year high. At Joliet Junior College, both numbers were hit historic highs, said Ryan Smith, vice president for institutional advancement and research.
(Michael R. Schmidt/Staff Photographer)
Statewide:
Full-Time Equivalency (FTE)* enrollment was 223,353, up 9.5 percent from last year, and the highest ever. Head count hit a 27-year high of 380,000, up 6.4 percent.
Joliet Junior College:
FTE was 9,419, up 9.9 percent from a year ago. Head count was 15,288, up 8.5 percent from 2008. Both numbers are new record highs.
* FTE is the total number of credit hours taken divided by 15, the typical amount of credits taken by a full-time student.
"Whenever the economy goes bad, people reevaluate their own skills and knowledge base and how it applies in today's labor market," he said.
Job uncertainty is what prompted Linda Keveloh, a 49-year-old Minooka woman, to enroll as a part-time student at JJC last year and a full-time student this year. Her husband works as a foreman for a commercial plumbing company that was hit with layoffs last year.
Keveloh decided to go back to school to get a computer science certification. Her kids are older now and she wanted to be ready to get a job in case her husband gets laid off.
"My husband, he was nervous and he was making me nervous," she said. "And I'm not usually nervous. I'm always an optimist."
The number of students between the ages of 40 and 55 enrolled at JJC increased by 6.7 percent from last year. But the largest enrollment increase was in students ages 17-24. Smith said some of those students have parents who have lost their jobs. The kids are trying to cut costs as much as possible by staying close to home and paying the lower JJC tuition, he added.
As a result, the school is working to give students a more well-rounded experience by offering an activity-filled orientation day and more clubs and extra-curricular activities.
"Anything you might see at a four-year institution," Smith said.
JJC also is in the midst of a $220 million building plan that will add classrooms and support areas to the main campus and the downtown culinary arts center. But the influx of students also has led to problems. JJC officials don't want class sizes to get too big, so they're trying to offer more online options through its iCampus program to accommodate the enrollment increase. The number of students enrolled in at least one Web-based class has increased 29 percent compared to last year.
As for Keveloh, she's thrilled with the JJC campus. The school has a monthly "lunch bunch" for older students that she attends. And she's volunteered to sew costumes for the school's theater. She has only one problem: Her 19-year-old son also is enrolled at JJC in the fire science department.
"He tries to hide from me," she joked. "He doesn't want me to see him."
But she said her younger kids—ages 9, 10 and 16 —were thrilled when she taped her English paper, which received an A grade, to the fridge.
"They love it."
