RCTC reports spike in enrollment numbers

(ABC 6 New) – Rochester Community and Technical College (RCTC) enrollment and in-person class numbers are seeing a bump compared to last year.

RCTC students are happy to be back on campus for another school year.

“It feels great, a new environment,” said RCTC student Keon Hunter. “I come from the cities so I kind of like Rochester. Great teachers and great environment.”

RCTC has 419 more students this fall, compared to last fall, a jump of more than 5%.

That trend can also be seen at the national level.

Last spring, community college numbers across the country were up 0.5% compared to an 8% drop the year before.

After a dip in numbers during the pandemic, RCTC’s in-person classes are up 7.5%.

“In-person you can get more help that you need and then online you really don’t have help,” said Hunter.

Students say they are more motivated to go to school now that things seem to back to normal and online class wasn’t cutting it for them.

“When I was at school, I really didn’t do my schoolwork when I was online. I don’t know why, I think it was because it was the beginning of the pandemic. You know ‘oh this is happening so why should I do it,'” said RCTC student Ashanty Abrau-Marmolejos.

Abrau-Marmolejos is a first-year student at RCTC. Most of her classes are in-person but she does take two online. She says, she enjoys the flexibility of online learning.

“Since I have to do online classes, I honestly believe it’s way easier than going to class because you can do the online classes when you want to,” said Abrau-Marmolejos.

Another thing both Hunter and Abrau-Marmolejos noted was their mental health while being completely online.

“I feel like my mental health was on the decline,” said Abrau-Marmolejos.

“Sitting at home somedays it was like depressing, sad. I don’t know it was just like being at school you can interact with people and being at home there’s no one to interact with,” said Hunter.

RCTC did say they don’t release their official numbers until classes have been in session for about a month as some students do drop out. So, these numbers could change in a few weeks, but they are still promising.