Enrollment at Ga. tech colleges zooms past 100K

ATLANTA - Enrollment in the current fall quarter at the 28 colleges of the Technical College System of Georgia has surged to a new record high with 110,254 students filling the classrooms and labs on the college campuses.

The thousands of new students are a 24% increase over the same time last year when 88,725 students attended classes. The total also shatters the system’s all-time record enrollment for one quarter, 91,838, which was set in 2003.

TCSG students will take more than 1.2 million credit hours of instruction in the fall quarter, which is another system record and the first time that the colleges have surpassed a million credit hours.

The huge enrollment increase was fueled in large part by the downturn in the economy as thousands of displaced and under-employed Georgians turned to the technical colleges for training in career fields that are still in demand, like healthcare, computer information systems, and business and office technologies.

The TCSG colleges are also seeing an increase in the number of students under the age of 21. In fact, a recent report from the Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement found that TCSG colleges ranked among the top 10 most popular post-secondary choices for high school graduates in 165 state school systems, and a technical college education was the top choice in 62 of those school systems.

“These are both important and exciting times for the TCSG. Our enrollment is growing at a record pace because the word is out that a Georgia technical college education is the most direct route to a great job and a long-term career,” said TCSG Commissioner Ron Jackson. “If there’s an upside in this down economy, it’s that the state’s technical colleges are helping tens of thousands of Georgians learn highly marketable skills and find their new place in today’s changing workforce.”

The largest fall quarter enrollment increase among the individual colleges was at Valdosta Technical College, which grew by 48%; next were Atlanta Technical College (47%), North Georgia Technical College (39%), Sandersville Technical College (35%), Albany Technical College (32%) and Lanier Technical College (32%).

Altamaha Technical College grew by 82% in the current fall quarter, but that number includes the assimilation of students from the technical division at the University System of Georgia’s College of Coastal Georgia which is now a four-year institution.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)