 
Their parents”™ college days may have featured elephant bell bottoms, granny glasses and a magical mystery tour or two, preferably a thousand miles away from home, but a survey of three regional colleges reveals today”™s undergraduates are increasingly opting for an education close by that features career-focused programs.
“Our enrollment is up 24 percent across the board from last year at this time,” said Pamela Eddington, dean of academic affairs at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk.
Some of the programs that have experienced a substantial increase include architecture and construction, business and health.
“All of the business courses like accounting, intro to business and business law are all up,” Eddington said. “The other place where we’re seeing a lot of interest in enrollment is any of the math, science and health courses.”
The students need to have a number of sciences to get into health program, Eddington said, so biology, chemistry and physiology are “way up from last year.”
The early childhood education, exercise science and graphic design programs are also up from a year ago, Eddington said.
“I think the story here is that community colleges across the board are experiencing much more demands,” Eddington said. “We”™re also seeing students from four-year schools coming here to take credits and many more students who are coming to the college to take course credits that they will transfer back to their home institution.”
Retention rate at the college is up, which is a function of lack of jobs, Eddington said.
“Staying in school to get an education is probably the best thing people can do at this point while waiting for the economy to bounce back,” Eddington said.
Another emerging area at Norwalk Community College is the green industry. The school is about to launch a noncredit series of courses related to green jobs and the green economy.
A grant from the department of labor allowed the school to offer a 30-credit certificate program ”“ linked with the architecture program ”“ to prepare energy auditors, weatherization specialists and people who can retrofit homes to conserve energy.
“I think there”™s a new understanding that conservation is an essential strategy for the future of the country,” Eddington said. “As the energy crisis has heated up, it was a topic that would be incorporated into coursework. All of us in education are looking to see what our responsibility is to offer more teaching on the topic of public and social issues. This is going to become one of those topics where if you’re in a business program there will be issues related to accounting in this area. The fastest growing green job across the country is accountants. These small businesses and others need to track their expenses and outlays and inputs in respect to green industries, and it will mean they will be hiring more accountants to do more of this work.”
Nursing as a major has grown steadily in popularity for the past five years, said Karen A. Pellegrino, director of undergraduate admission at Fairfield University in Fairfield.
“We usually see a 5 (percent) and 8 percent increase in applications each year for our nursing program,” Pellegrino said. “We seek to enroll about 65 students in the nursing program each year, and admission to nursing gets a little more selective each year. We can”™t increase the size of the school to keep up with the demand.”
Students earn a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing after completing the four-year program, which includes a core curriculum as well as clinical experiences on and off campus.
“We”™re affiliated with just about every major hospital and medical center in the area,” Pellegrino said.
Applications to the school”™s business program, however, have decreased.
“My guess is that it”™s concerns about the economy,” Pellegrino said. “As the economy started to experience problems and students saw the layoffs, it probably made them reconsider their choices.”
At St. Mary College in Newburgh, N.Y., applications for its nursing program have nearly doubled in the past couple of years.
“Two years ago, we had 65 people in the nursing program,” said Rodney Morrison, director of admissions at St. Mary. “As of today we have 115 people who are enrolling for the coming year. We”™re still taking applications, but to maintain quality of the program we have to be a bit more selective now.”
Morrison said in the years to come, the college plans to grow the program to accommodate more students.
“We”™re seeing a spike in fields where students have the ability to service the public, like education,” Morrison said. “We have also noticed that certainly, given the economy and everyone trying to make ends meet, schools like ours that are a good value are seeing more interest. Our applications have been up close to 40 percent, so that”™s tremendous.”
The number of transfer applicants is also on the rise, Morrison said.
“We are close to double the amount of applications we had two years ago in terms of transfer numbers,” Morrison said. “Part of that may be due to financial circumstances, with people who may have gone away to school someplace else moving back home.”
