November 1, 2016 at 8:58 a.m.
Nicolet looks to maximize enrollment
Nicolet looks to maximize enrollment
One of the main areas of interest was data that provided quarterly updates, provided by Chuck Komp, managing director of Strategic Illustrations. Komp discussed the main target of potential students.
Statistics like these are always important to secondary educational institutions because it is important to maximize that student body as much as possible. Two main statistics were notable.
To no surprise, millennials - ages 18 to 34 - were the main target for new students. Meanwhile, the other notable stat was that most of that target audience want to work their education around their lives instead of wrapping their lives around education.
The statistics Komp provided tied in with a previous presentation by the Early Childhood Education Program, which has been averaging 100 percent job placement success since 2013.
One statistic that has been omitted, is the percentage of millennials looking for an education who also have children.
In a study done by WomenEmployed.org, low-income single mothers are more likely to choose to pursue their goals at a community college because of affordability, variety of programs, acceptance standards and the luxury of being close to home, and are more likely to be older than the average student age range of 18-22.
Some may claim that single parents or parents in general are a small portion of the target audience, but that is rapidly becoming a falsity.
Data from the National Longitude Study of Youth, which surveyed 9,000 youths aged 12-16 in 1997 and followed them annually into adulthood.
In 2011, when the kids were aged 26 to 31, 53 percent of the women reported having at least one child, while 41 percent of the men reported fathering a child. Furthermore, 87 percent of the men who sired a child did not have a college degree, while 81 percent of the women did not have a college degree.
One of the major challenges for any parent is affordable childcare. Daycare can be an expensive thing that may keep parents from allocating money into college.
"If there were an affordable, convenient option for child care, would that make a real difference in enrollment?" Nicolet District Board member Richard Nelson said. "I'm generalizing, but except for the youngest of the group that want the social interaction, the 30-40 aged individuals are choosing online. They not only don't want to go across the county to go to a class, they don't want to go across the street."
Certain members of the board, including chairman Bob Martini, agreed that attempting to bring back a day care service would be something to look into.
According to Martini, Nicolet originally had a day care service, but it lost $250,000 per year.
"It never broke even and we never had any evidence that enrollment went up," Martini said.
Marketing such a service would go a long way to attracting parents to attend, along with tying in the Early Childhood Education Program.
The program does not have children in the demonstration rooms because of some licensing issues and fees, but ECE instructor Diana Rickert said it would be something the program would be glad to look into.
"There's licensing regulations and rules that would make it challenging," Rickert said in her speech. "If we were going to do that, we'd have to look into some other options. but we're open to that."
An option for a day care service could be to hire some of the ECE's own graduates if they were willing to find a way to make it profitable.
Nick Sabato may be reached at [email protected] or via Twitter @SabatoNick.
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