MSU president: MSU-Great Falls Tech college sets good example enrollment

Great Falls leading way in offsetting declining

By holding night classes, offering courses over the Internet and building partnerships with the private sector, MSU-Great Falls College of
Technology is doing what the rest of the state’s university system needs to do to offset falling enrollment in coming years, MSU President
Geoff Gamble said Wednesday.

By CAROL BRADLEY
Tribune Staff Writer

Experts predict a 9.2 percent decrease in college-bound young adults between now and 2015, and "Great Falls has already started to
answer how we will backfill that," Gamble said.

"You’re already well-positioned," he told a small audience at the school. "You’re doing it, and you’re doing it well."

Gamble was in town for a state-of-the-campus address at MSU Tech, where full-time-equivalent enrollment has jumped 39 percent since
1994 and the school is running out of space.

"We are succeeding beyond anyone’s expectations but our own," Interim Dean/CEO Mary Moe said.

The school is doing everything it can to accommodate students, Moe said. MSU Tech has begun offering courses from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
on weekdays and is also open on weekends.

It doesn’t hurt that tuition is significantly lower than at Montana’s four-year public and private colleges.

The average MSU-Tech student is a 31-year-old woman who’s going to school part-time while juggling a full- or part-time job. She’s taking
different courses than she once did.

Enrollment in health care courses has dropped from 37 percent to 28 percent over the last five years. Business and technology courses
have held steady. Students are most interested in taking courses and programs that can be transferred to four-year colleges, Moe said.

Most students aren’t interested in a two-year associate of science degree, she added. Instead, they’re more inclined to pick and choose a
few courses that suit their needs.

Of those who graduated last year, 89 percent found jobs within six months, 81 percent in a degree-related field. Almost all were working in
Montana, earning anywhere from $10 an hour in business and technology to $28.60 an hour in the health information coding field.

"That’s pretty good for a two-year degree," Moe said.

The school will begin accepting students this summer for what will be the state’s only dental hygiene program. The state needs to come
up with $120,000 to cover the second year, Moe said.

Other needs:

More space.

Better pay for faculty, administrators and staff. In the last year and a half, seven of its 14 full-time health care faculty have left, all but one
for better-paying jobs, Moe said.

More funding to provide customized training for businesses. "My colleagues from across the nation are amazed when I tell them we have
no funding source for the start-up of high-tech programs," Moe said.

Meanwhile, Gamble said unidentified sources have contributed $9 million toward a private endowment that can provide scholarship money
to Montana students struggling to pay tuition. Five percent of the interest earned from the money would provide $750,000 a year worth of
scholarships, he said.

Gamble’s original goal was $10 million, but he said Montanans have been so generous he’s now looking to raise $15 million.

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