The Times Record, July 30, 2004
Applications to Maine's community college programs increase by 18 % in just one year
By Victorial Wallack
AUGUSTA - Last July the state's technical colleges were officially renamed and marketed as the Maine Community College System. Since then, enrollment in degree programs has gone up by 18 percent statewide.
The system's administration believes it could increase enrollment by 50 percent by 2010 - a goal restrained only by the amount of aid the state is willing to contribute.
Community College System President John Fitzsimmons said a $20 million increase on the $40 million already provided by the state would allow him to meet the 50 percent growth projection. That would mean 15,000 students enrolled in degree programs by 2010 - as compared to the projected enrollment of 10,000 this fall.
"We have more students applying than we can help. They're coming to us in droves," said Fitzsimmons. If the state doesn't increase its aid, he said, community colleges will have to impose an enrollment cap. The system's current budget is approximately $80 million annually.
The surge is happening at a time when enrollment in the University of Maine System, offering four-year degrees and graduate study, is flat and predicted to decline - a situation that could get much worse as K-12 enrollment declines statewide. The University System draws 88 percent of its 34,000 students from Maine school systems.
"Of the three public systems, we're the only one that's going to experience significant growth," Fitzsimmons said.
The Community College System is thriving, administrators say, because it is drawing from untapped local population pools - high school graduates, who either don't have the money or academic preparation to go straight to a four-year college, and adult workers who need training to get another job.
Community colleges could, in fact, help the University System grow by acting as a two-year, half-price gateway to the university's four-year program. A year at community college costs about $2,600, including tuition and fees.
The system, even under its old Technical College System moniker, began offering an associate's degree in liberal arts in 1999. Since then the number of students entering directly out of high school has more than doubled and enrollment in all degree programs has gone up 38 percent.
There also has been a 26 percent increase in the number of students transferring from the Community College System into the University System.
While some fear the addition of liberal arts studies will cause the community colleges to lose their focus on career training, one-third of those who enrolled in liberal arts programs have gone into a career program once they got their feet wet.
And, while the liberal studies program has been the fastest growing - representing 24 percent of all students working toward a degree today - Fitzsimmons said career training will always dominate in the schools.
Occupation training "is our past, our present and our future," Fitzsimmons said. "I would not be part of this system if we abandoned it." He would like to see the ratio at 70 percent occupation-based training and 30 percent liberal studies by 2010.
Job training subsidies
Part of what will keep the occupation focus is the amount of federal dollars coming through the state Department of Labor for job training at community colleges. The bulk of it is for those adults displaced by foreign competition.
In the 2002 school year, there were 7,518 students in degree programs and of that group 900 to 1,000, or 12 percent, were displaced workers, many of whom were receiving tuition assistance through the Department of Labor. While numbers were not available for this past academic year, it is estimated that about the same percentage of the system's 8,898 degree students were getting Department of Labor assistance.
The largest chunk of the money comes through the federal Trade Readjustments Assistance program for people going to college because they've lost their jobs due to offshore competition. The money is for workers from a designated plant that meets the Department of Labor criteria, and the retraining has to be occupational for a skill that's in demand. The program offers what some have described as the "grand piano" of services, including tuition and extended unemployment benefits for some as they go to school.
Fitzsimmons, who before becoming president of the system 14 years ago was the commissioner of labor under Gov. John McKernan, said he was an early advocate of using the then Technical College System to do Department of Labor training because the programs were well run and the certificate meant something in the work force.
The state also completely funds - at a cost of $756,000 in the most recent budget - another program called Quality Centers, started under Fitzsimmons and McKernan, where the Community College System designs and runs training programs for specific industries in need of skilled workers. There has to be a need for eight or more employees and the jobs have to offer decent wages - now averaging $11 an hour - and health care.
Fitzsimmons said many of the leading industries in the state have taken advantage of the program; 500 employees for Jackson Labs, for example, and another 450 for Fairchild in South Portland. About 12,000 employees in all have gone through a Quality Center, but their numbers are not counted in the college's degree enrollment.
Close to home
While Quality Centers can be set up almost anywhere, the bulk of learning at community colleges goes on at one of the system's seven main campuses and eight centers, including one in Bath.
Predictably, those colleges experiencing the most growth draw their students from populated coastal areas. Southern Maine Community College in South Portland - the system's oldest and largest - was up 23 percent in total enrollment this past fall; Kennebec Valley in Fairfield was up 18 percent; and, Eastern Maine in Bangor was up 16 percent.
The Mid-coast, Fitzsimmons said, feels underserved, and he has had inquiries about building a new college or center from Rockland business leaders and those in Wiscasset trying to make use of the old Maine Yankee site.
Boothbay Harbor has set up a Coastal College Development Board with the goal of setting up an ocean-oriented, two- or four-year accredited college focused on careers that deal with the sea, from marine biology to boat building. The group has not looked to partner with the Community College System.
Fitzsimmons said given the current economic situation in the state, there are no plans to add colleges or centers at this time.
Alice Kirkpatrick, Community College System spokeswoman, said the most popular programs after liberal studies are computer and multimedia programs, with 17 percent enrolled; nursing and health-related fields, at 14 percent; business and office administration, at 12 percent; and early childhood and paraprofessional education, i.e., classroom techs or ed techs, at 9 percent.
Kirkpatrick warned that focusing on the growth in liberal studies among those just graduating from high school was missing the bigger picture.
"Adults are changing the face of higher ed," she said, and what we're seeing now, in terms of adults going back to school, is "just the tip of the iceberg."
"The economy is changing and people need to go back to school and retrain," Kirkpatrick said. If just a segment of the adult population that needed or wanted to go back for retraining went back to school, "you'd flood Maine colleges."