Record Enrollment at CFCC

Employment may be down and funding cut to schools, but a record number of people are heading back to school. Our local college is no exception.

Record enrollment fills Cape Fear Community College classes
By Chelsea Kellner
Chelsea.Kellner@StarNewsOnline.com

Professors are pulling out the folding chairs to accommodate a record number of students at Cape Fear Community College this semester.

Enrollment numbers are up 15 percent from last year already, and that’s not counting the high school, law enforcement and truck driver training students who have yet to sign up.

“The number of applications exceeds anything we’ve ever seen before,” CFCC President Eric McKeithan said. “I’m surprised we were able to find this many extra spaces.”

The slow economy that has put a financial squeeze on state-funded schools like CFCC is also sending people back to school in record numbers. That means schools are seeing record numbers of students just when they have the least money to spend on expansion.

This time last year, registration clocked in at 7,455, with some students still to register. By the time registration closed, the school saw an 8.5 percent increase from the year before, McKeithan said.

Right now, the college is looking at the possibility of enrollment topping 9,000 students for the first time. As of Friday, enrollment stood at 8,594, with many more students expected to sign on this week. These figures represent continuing students and first-time students.

To squeeze in as many students as possible, the college has more than doubled the number of classes offered online – 385 this fall compared to 157 last fall – and increased class sizes. That’s where the folding chairs came in, when some courses were standing-room-only on the first day of class.

Despite added seats in popular programs, most of them still filled up fast. College transfer and health care classes are full, as well as technical classes ranging from computer repair to cosmetology.

The school has new buildings in the works, but delays in the state construction permitting process mean CFCC won’t open a new building with classrooms until 2011.
In the meantime, the downtown campus is bustling.

“Walking down a couple of blocks of Front Street, there were our students in virtually every shop, every restaurant,” McKeithan said. “It’s good to see that kind of energy downtown.”

Chelsea Kellner: 343-2070
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