By Darren Johnson
Campus News
While most community colleges in New York state are seeing significant drops in enrollment this COVID-clouded semester – several as high as double-digit declines, despite a SUNY-wide marketing digital campaign promoting two-year schools – one community college, as of press time, was actually doing relatively well.
“The playbook is out the window, and we’ve been executing a new recruitment plan for this fall,” said Denver Stickrod, Director of Admissions at Herkimer County Community College in Upstate New York, located just about at the midpoint of the New York State Thruway.
Herkimer may end up breaking even, comparing this year’s enrollment to last year’s pre-COVID numbers, which, considering, is quite impressive.
And two key components to their good numbers: Active recruitment in New York City and a robust, well established online program.
“We’ve been lucky in a sense in that we’ve actually established a remote location at the SUNY Welcome Center (in Manhattan), though it’s closed at present,” Stickrod said. “That’s been the challenge; downstate is expected to grow, while upstate is shrinking — so the work of our designated counselor down there, in New York City, has proven fruitful.”
In 2018, 73 Herkimer students were from downstate; in 2019, the college started using a “territorial model” of admissions (where recruiters are based on geography) and that number grew to 113. For this fall, 121 students from downstate were expected to enroll.
Herkimer is a bucolic campus atop a hill and adjacent to a reservoir in a rural area; it’s very different than an urban or suburban downstate community college. But Stickrod added that’s a plus. “Students are looking for something that’s completely different,” said Stickrod. “We try to package the whole ‘college experience’ they’d get at a four-year school,” he added. “We have residence halls, top athletics programs and numerous clubs. We have it all.”
Unlike many comparable community colleges, Herkimer has had dormitories for decades (which can normally house 600 students; but, with the pandemic and social distancing, that number has been reduced to 350). They also were one of the first Upstate community colleges to truly embrace online education, starting their Internet Academy as its own academic division nearly two decades ago. “We’re atypical for a community college,” Stickrod added. “We get as many as 60 percent of our students from outside our immediate area.”
Another tool the Admissions office uses are Accepted Student Bus Trips that go down to New York City and bring 50-60 students up to the campus before the semester begins. “It helps a lot, because many of these students haven’t even seen the campus,” Stickrod said, adding that a lot of students apply to Herkimer without knowing the region, and they may back-out otherwise. “They get here and are impressed. They’ve never seen anything like it.”
Tuition at Herkimer is about the same as at a CUNY community college, $5016/year for New York State residents, but over $1000 less than tuition at Nassau and Suffolk community colleges. The fees at Herkimer are also less.
“Our experience tells us that our tuition rate is attractive, and our fees are less than other community colleges’,” said Linda Lamb, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. “Overall, students get a bigger bang for their buck.”
Many downstate students attend Herkimer to play sports, most especially basketball and lacrosse; others are non-traditional students just looking for a change of pace. Some students are purely online and never step foot on campus; it’s just that Herkimer happens to have a program they are interested in. Previously, the Internet Academy accounted for about 16-17% of Herkimer’s total population; now it’s 34%.
With the pandemic, some students are wholly taking online courses while still living in the dorms. The campus also has food service and Work Study jobs available. Rent is typically $8000 for a single apartment and food plans are $2210 a semester for 19 meals a week.
Lamb manages the Internet Academy, which hosts 23 programs and well over 1000 students. According to the web site College Consensus, Herkimer’s “Online associate’s degrees – both freestanding and transfer-ready – are available in accounting, business administration, ecotourism and adventure travel, human resource management, marketing, quality assurance-business, small business management, travel & events management, criminal justice, legal studies, health services management technology, human services, general studies, humanities, social science and quality assurance-science. Additionally, there are 100% online certificates available for specific careers.”
“We started the Internet Academy in 1999 and started offering fully online programs in 2001, before anyone else. We really embraced technology, and, with 20 years of experience, now it’s a part of our DNA,” Lamb said. “We focus on adult working students, those who want a change in their lives, or perhaps they are finishing a degree they hadn’t finished.”
Having such a strong technological component at Herkimer really helped this past spring, when colleges were forced to transition online due to COVID-19. Most colleges experienced a loss of quality with the hurried transition, but Herkimer was ready. “We already had an infrastructure in place,” Lamb said. “Because most of our professors already had significant LMS (Learning Management System) training.”
A site called Online U recently listed Herkimer as the No. 2 online community college in the state (behind Troy’s Hudson Valley Community College). Lamb said reputation matters a lot.
“We get a lot of repeat customers – even the children of repeat customers,” she said. “There’s a lot of positive word-of-mouth.”
To apply to attend Herkimer County Community College, whether in-person or online, have your high school transcript or proof of GED available and visit herkimer.edu or call 315-574-4035.
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