Harsh economy pushes more students to less expensive community colleges

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Karen Stone worked as a pharmacy technician at Johns Hopkins Hospital until she had to leave to give full-time care to her terminally ill, 7-month-old daughter.

Months later, when the single mother wanted to go back, she said, she realized she had been away for too long and wouldn’t be able to do the job well enough to meet the hospital’s or her own high standards.

Now, Stone, 41, who never earned a college degree, is headed back to school to try to re-enter the work force amid a floundering economy.

She, like many others throughout the country, enrolled not at a university, but at a less-expensive community college.

“You need to have an education if you want to survive this economy,” Stone said. “You have to adapt, so you need new skills, you need education, you need cutting-edge technology.”

Tuition at community colleges in the Baltimore area can cost up to seven times less than tuition at the state’s flagship university, the University of Maryland, College Park. Anne Arundel Community College’s tuition this fall is $86 per credit hour; the university’s is $607 per credit hour.

At the Community College of Baltimore County, summer enrollment is up 20 percent compared with enrollment at this time last year, and early fall enrollment is up nearly 10 percent. Officials expect fall enrollment to crush the 20,000 mark from last year.

The school is calling more adjunct professors to teach additional classes in the early afternoon; students are saving gas by taking online courses; and loans are tougher to come by, said Dan McConochie, the college’s senior director of planning and research.

“I think what we’re seeing is both that we’re local and it doesn’t take a lot of commuting to get to us,” McConochie said.

“A student may have previously been able to weather an economic storm by taking out a student loan ... They just aren’t lending to people at the pace they were before.”

Stanford Crutchfield, 25, waited to go to school until he could apply for financial aid as an independent student. He hopes to earn a business degree from Coppin State University after he graduates next fall from Baltimore City Community College, where enrollment is up about 5 percent.

But he remains wary of his job prospects and how he’ll pay for school.

“I feel like things might pick up, but the way things are going, it’s going to be harder,” Crutchfield said of the economy. “If you don’t have a degree or a skill or a trade up under you, it can be hard for you to get any investments or anything going for you.”

Stone, meanwhile, is taking summer classes and is enrolled full-time for fall classes at BCCC. She isn’t sure which major she will select but is leaning toward computer science.

“You really need to have a step up,” she said. “I’m looking for something that will be around for a while and outlast this economy.”

msilvestri@baltimoreexaminer.com

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