Maine Community College System (MCCS) President John Fitzsimmons reported yesterday that enrollment in Maine’s community colleges has grown 64 percent—to 12,316 degree seeking students—since the community colleges were established in 2003. Citing preliminary fall enrollment numbers to the MCCS Board of Trustees, Fitzsimmons noted that degree seeking enrollment is up by 634 students over last fall and nearly 4,800 students since the seven institutions made the transition from technical to community colleges six years ago. The number of students entering directly from high school has also continued to grow, up 69 percent in six years and 5 percent this year alone (to 2,111).
Central Maine Community College in Auburn is experiencing the largest growth in degree seeking students this fall (up 8.4% to 2,038). In terms of student headcount, which includes both degree and non-degree seeking students, CMCC is up 5.5% (to 2,447) over last fall.
Roger Philippon, Dean of Planning and Public Affairs at CMCC, noted that the College is especially pleased that enrollment growth continues to be strong in career and technical programs. “In addition to a large increase in liberal arts students,(those likely to transfer to a four-year college or university) we see enrollment increases in a number of our career and technical programs, such as business administration and management, computer technology, graphic arts and printing technology, human services, and medical assisting. Other programs such as nursing and automotive technology are again this year at or over capacity.”
The enrollment numbers announced today are preliminary, but are not expected to change significantly by the official census date of October 15th.
