 
Their parents”™ college days may have featured elephant bell bottoms, granny glasses and a magical mystery tour or two, preferably a thousand miles from home, but a check of three regional colleges reveals today”™s undergraduates are increasingly opting for an education close by that features career-focused programs.
“We”™ve been setting records for the past five semesters in terms of enrollment,” said Dale Smith, director of admissions at Westchester Community College (WCC) in Valhalla.
Last fall 1,717 students enrolled at WCC directly from high schools in the region; two years ago it was about 1,600 and four years ago, 1,200 to 1,300.
Smith said at an average cost of $4,200 a year for tuition and fees, WCC offers a good value and the “ability for students to go here and transfer very successfully to basically any four-year college out there and save a ton of money in the process.”
About 75 percent of WCC students do transfer, Smith said, which has affected popular course choices. “The one area that has just zoomed in enrollment is the general education core requirements that students will need to transfer, including English, math and the sciences,” Smith said. “Those are the courses that they need no matter where they go.”
An increasing demand for WCC”™s three nursing programs prompted the college to increase the size of its evening/weekend program that began three years ago.
“We have far more many applications than we can accept,” Smith said.
Graduates of the nursing program receive an associate”™s degree. Smith said there are an average of 240 students in the program overall.
Courses of action
Another new associate”™s degree WCC will offer in the fall is computer security and forensics, Smith said.
“It helps our graduates go into an area where they”™ll help companies secure their Web sites or eventually go into law enforcement,” Smith said.
Distance learning is another area that”™s growing, Smith said. “We probably have tripled offerings in the past five years.”
A community college in neighboring Connecticut has a similar story.
“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.
The college has seen a growing demand for several programs, including architecture and construction, business and health.
“All of the business courses like accounting, (introduction) 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 a number of sciences to get into the 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, she said.
“I think the story here is that community colleges across the board are experiencing ”¦ 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.”
The retention rate at the college is up as well, 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,” she said.
Another emerging area at Norwalk Community College is the green industry. The school is about to launch a non-credit series of courses related to green jobs.
A grant from the department of labor allowed the school to offer a 30-credit certificate program ”“ separate but related to its 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. “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. ”¦ 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 in demand
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, Conn.
“We usually see a 5 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.”
Gersom Lopez, director of admissions at Monroe College in New Rochelle, said though business continues to remain a steady major, interest in nursing is up.
“Our largest programs historically have been business management and criminal justice,” Lopez said. “The other program that I”™ve seen take off is our allied health services area, from management to patient care.”
The nursing program offers an associate”™s degree and is limited to 30 students. Students can enter a pre-nursing program to brush up on their sciences before taking the exam required to qualify for the nursing program, which the school began offering in 2008, Lopez said.
At St. Mary College in Newburgh, applications for its nursing program have nearly doubled. “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 (the) quality of the program we have to be a bit more selective now.”
