Alamance Community College has the best enrollment growth of all the state’s community colleges this year, according to data provided by the N.C. Community College System.
The preliminary projection indicates that ACC’s enrollment rose by 6 percent in the 2015-16 academic year compared to flat or declining enrollment at 53 of the state’s 58 community colleges. This news was reported by ACC Executive Vice President Scott Queen at the Board of Trustees’ annual retreat recently.
Having such positive enrollment numbers means that ACC’s Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)–a formula used to compute the number of classes students are taking —places the college at the head of the class for more state funding.
“We as a college have been working very hard the last couple of years to not only bring in more students each semester, but we have also been just as committed to retention efforts to make sure our students stay and earn their degrees and certificates so they can join the workforce or move on to a four-year university,” said ACC President Dr. Algie Gatewood. “It’s been a total group effort on the part of our faculty, staff, advisors, and marketing efforts to let our current and prospective students know we are here for them. We are committed to their success.”
Some of the initiatives that helped the College’s enrollment growth include a program called Completion By Design, focused on counseling students at risk for dropping out before finishing their programs; and Career and College Promise, which gives Alamance-Burlington high school students a myriad of opportunities to take college-credit classes tuition-free and get ahead of their peers when they enroll full-time at ACC or another North Carolina college or university.
To put ACC’s top standing of 6 percent growth among community colleges, the N.C. Community College System Office reported a projected 2.2 percent decline overall.