Athens Tech enrollment keeps growing

Over the last nine consecutive semesters, enrollment at Athens Technical College has grown, the college reports.

As reported in The Athens Banner-Herald, the latest spurt was in this spring semester’s enrollment with a 4.1 percent increase over spring semester of 2018.

Since summer semester of 2016, there have been year-over-year increases, when 2,165 students enrolled, which was up 2.2 percent over the 2015 summer semester enrollment.

The college, which services 11 areas including Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Hart, Madison, Morgan, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Taliaferro, Walton, and Wilkes counties, calculated its annual economic impact to more than $118 million and 2,535 jobs in the 2017 fiscal year, according to an analysis by a private company, EMSI. Of that total amount, $85.6 million is attributed to Athens Tech alumni in the area.

Partly dependent on the economy, technical college enrollment can go up when people lose jobs during a recession as many seek new job skills in technical colleges.

Athens Technical College President Andrea Daniel established a committee to increase enrollment in 2016 witn strategies including raising community awareness of Athens Technical College, new financial aid programs and increasing dual high school-college enrollment and other “recruitment opportunities.”

As of 2018, nearly 40,000 Technical College System of Georgia students were pursuing associate degrees. That’s almost four times as many as in 1999, according to a report by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

The numbers of students in diploma and technical certificate of credit programs was about the same as the number in associate degree programs and the number in diploma programs as of 2018.

Overall, 2018 enrollment in the 22 colleges of Technical College System of Georgia was more than 137,000 students, according to a report by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

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