After a full academic year during the pandemic which left Kentucky Community and Technical Colleges down 11.6% in attendance, OCTC has reported they are bouncing back to pre-pandemic numbers.
During the 2020-21 school year, OCTC had 3,902 students enrolled — which was down 2.81% compared to August 2019. While the school had seen drops in enrollment in recent years, there was a major dip in first-time freshmen enrollment.
According to Council on Postsecondary Education data, there was a 23.39% drop in first-time freshmen attendance over the 2020-21 school year with 523 students.
That was the biggest decline in a decade.
“We were in line with everybody. So it wasn’t just Owensboro, it was across the state,” OCTC President Dr. Scott Williams said. “[The pandemic] hit last March and April and then that fall we really saw enrollments drop.”
Williams said this year OCTC is up about 8% in total student headcount — one of the college’s highest growths in a decade.
As for the freshmen, he reports they have grown by roughly 90 students — yet another high for the college.
Williams said the pandemic did hurt the system, but they took a lot of lessons from the way the college operated.
One way was in the mode the courses were delivered. Introducing a strong mix of online, hybrid and face-to-face classes also boosted the number of students that were able to enroll, Williams said.
While they were introducing a heavier mix of classes, OCTC also saw a large push in their marketing efforts to ensure that word was spread as much as possible. That prompted them to create new courses and programs like plumbing, CDL and a second nursing cohort.
While college saw a drop in several areas of enrollment during the pandemic year, they saw a nearly 4% uptick underrepresented minorities. And 2021-22 is no different.
This school year marks the sixth consecutive year of growth for minority students enrolled at OCTC.
Williams cites this as a product of the concentrated effort to create a culture of culturally conscious work teams throughout the college.
“We’ve been working in that realm very, very strongly. We’ve offered a lot more programming in that area for both our students and our campus community,” Williams said.
Coming out of the pandemic year, the college is excited to move forward after “rebounding” from the enrollment numbers and plugging themselves into the community more diligently. They’ve utilized programs at not only the high school level with the ACE program that will be expanding to Daviess County School system, but also for first responders with their paramedic course.
