Albany Technical College President Anthony Parker: College tackling enrollment challenge

ALBANY — Facing an enrollment challenge because of a dwindling regional population, Albany Technical College President Anthony Parker delivered his annual State of the College address today with his focus on finding new pools of potential students, retaining the ones already enrolled in school and helping new graduates with job placement.

“The current economic climate has increased the reliance of a post-secondary education at a technical college to secure a well-paying job,” Parker said. “Obtainment of workforce skill sets is one of the more important variables in competing for employment. Enrollment has been an issue for us this year, and 50 percent of our budget comes from tuition.”

According to a handout furnished by the college, ATC Summer Semester 2014 enrollment was 3,045, 738 fewer students than the school’s Spring Semester enrollment of 3,783.

“We are dealing with a smaller student pool because of population shifts away from the region,” Parker said. “That is is also reflected in fewer representatives in the Georgia Legislature. We simply cannot recruit our way to constant growth, so we have to retain more students. Retention is very important to us, but it is one of our soft spots that we must work on. This is a challenge, but it is doable.”

Parker, however, added that there were many positives over the past fiscal year, citing the school’s report card from the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG).

“We met 14 of 17 of the state’s expectations in our most recent report card from the state,” Parker said. “We increased our number of dual-enrolled high students who are also taking classes at Albany Tech. Since 2008 we have been assigned the responsibility of increasing our number of graduates.

Parker pointed out that ATC led the six-institution region funded by the TCSG in non-duplicated graduates (1,842), certificates (1,938), diplomas (939), associate degrees (267) and total awards (3,144).

The president also added that ATC’s Career Development Center helped the school achieve nearly a 91 percent job placement rate during the last year. The majority of these new jobs were in the health care field — most notably in nursing and surgical technology.

“All across the nation, accountability is the goal,” Parker said. “So we start with the end in mind and help each student begin by putting together an employment portfolio. We are committed to what happens to every one of our students after graduation.”