Lori Glenn
March 08, 2008 10:24 pm
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MOULTRIE — It is indeed true, as the slogan goes, that Moultrie Technical College is “everywhere you turn.”
This week, MTC hosted the Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority monthly meeting. Development officials learned of its successes and the challenges facing the “economic development engine,” as the institution is called by MTC President Tina Anderson.
MTC has had a dip in enrollment in the past year. That was caused by a decrease in enrollment on the Moultrie campus, Anderson said. MTC satellites in Tift, Turner and Worth counties continue to enjoy increases, she said.
Colquitt County’s stumble in enrollment could be due to new industry, most notably Sanderson Farms, coming in and offering employment to thousands.
“If we’ve got to take a dip because there’s so many new jobs, we’ll take it — but we wouldn’t take it for any other reason,” she said.
The MTC campus is in need of expansion, Anderson said. The facility on the bypass is full and the old campus remains full and requires $2 million in repairs every five years. Anderson pushed to get on the state’s list for construction. It was 10th on the list but later was bumped to 12th.
“We’ve got 75 acres here. We could put 10 more half-campuses here,” Anderson said, referring to the campus on Veterans Parkway as a half-campus.
Enrollment has outpaced funding at MTC. In the past decade, enrollment has increased 139 percent while its budget has increased by only 89 percent, she said. State cuts have been managed without laying off employees, she said, and the MTC Foundation has been successful at raising funds.
On to MTC’s successes: Ninety-eight percent of MTC students graduate, and 93 percent graduate in their field. Eighty percent of graduates stay in the 50-mile local area. The most recent retention rate for MTC is 60 percent.
Its dual enrollment program now enrolls 66 Colquitt County high school students. Dual enrollment means that a high school student is taking classes at MTC that simultaneously go to high school credit and college credit. Colquitt County’s graduation rate of participants is 100 percent, she said.
The entire program totals 368 students, which is the highest enrollment this quarter in the entire state system of 33 technical colleges, Anderson said. Tift County has the most students dually enrolled at 142. Worth County enrolls 113 students and Turner County enrolls 47.
Students can pay for dual enrollment classes through the HOPE grant program. Anderson paused to mention that technical colleges are asking the legislature and the governor to remove the cap on HOPE.
“Right now, HOPE has a cap on it. Students can only use so much of it, and then they lose it,” she said. “What happens is that parents are thinking ... ‘Do I want to use their HOPE when it’s $36 a credit hour at technical college or do I wait to use it at the University of Georgia or Valdosta State or ABAC. They’re having a struggle with that. If they remove the cap, parents and students don’t even have to think about it anymore.”
In Tifton, MTC partnered with Tift County Schools to work with 36 students who were on the verge of dropping out of high school, said Shawn Utley, vice president of economic development. Instructors worked with them in the morning with credit recovery, and in the afternoon, they attended dual enrollment classes while still on the high school campus.
“These were 36 kids that weren’t going to graduate, and they knew that. They weren’t going to graduate. Twenty-one of those 36 graduated,” Utley said. “This year, 12 of those 15 who didn’t graduate are back with us. They’re still in school.”
Next year, MTC hopes to double the size of that program in Tift County and introduce it in Colquitt County.
“They were pulled out of the fire because of the school system being willing to think outside of the box,” Anderson said.
Of the four counties MTC serves, Colquitt County has had the highest dropout rate. More than 35 percent of county residents don’t have a high school diploma. Many of these residents are illiterate. MTC offers adult education to help adults obtain their general equivalency degree.
An overwhelming majority MTC’s adult education students can’t read or write at a high school level. Most of them are within the 16- to 18-year-old age group. They have a greater success rate at obtaining a GED. More than 100 of these students are probationers or incarcerated. A good number are English as a second language students.
“The difficulty with that group of students is that not only did they come to us not knowing English, but about half of them came in not being literate in Spanish. They can’t read or write Spanish, so we’ve got to teach them English when they can’t read or write Spanish. We’re going to do it. We have dedicated teachers,” Anderson said.
Last year, 147 students earned their GEDs in Colquitt County, she said.
MTC’s success with its Quick Start program continues. This program offers training, particularly for manufacturing jobs, to workers so they will be ready to go to work for a particular company. Eligible businesses can qualify for tax credits of $500 per person for upgrading skills, Anderson said.
“We hope more businesses in Colquitt County take advantage of it,” she said.
MTC is working with Valdosta Technical College in implementing the governor’s Work Ready program, essentially evaluating workers’ skills to match them to jobs. MTC fill those skill gaps through training, she said, in an effort to ultimately reduce job turnover in the community.
In the past five years, MTC has spent about $6 million in upgrades in classroom equipment, Anderson said. MTC is working, for instance, with local law enforcement to secure grants to bring in a $160,000 shooting simulator with a 300-degree range and a truck driving simulator for the Tifton campus.
“We’re so proud that we’re turning out students who have state-of-the-art equipment to work on and they’re doing a good job for you,” she said. “We want our instructors to be tough on our students. ... We want to turn out great students you can be proud of in your community.”
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