TROY’s Dual-Enrollment program expected to triple in size
A tuition price cut of 77 percent should be very popular with future Trojans. Plus, I produced a longer-than-usual "By the Numbers" sidebar about Troy University.
By BILL RICE, JR.
As Troy University grows and prospers, so will Troy and Pike County.
With this common-sense statement made in my lede sentence, I think today’s big press event at the University qualifies as exciting and important news.
The purpose of the event was to announce that Troy University has dropped the tuition price for high school students in its dual enrollment program by 77 percent!
A three-hour class that used to cost $297 can now be taken for only $99. (The credit-hour price was reduced from $145/hour to $33/hour.)
According to Chancellor Jack Hawkins, Jr., this initiative is expected to “triple” the number of high school students who get a head start on earning college credits - from the current 250 to 300 students in the program to 750 to 900 students next fall.
“Dual enrollment” students are 10th to 12th graders who take college classes on-line while they are still taking high school classes.
To qualify for the program students must have a 3.0 GPA in high school, receive a recommendation from a school administrator and/or make a specified score on their ACT (20) or SAT college entrance exams (1030).
To promote this eye-opening change, Troy officials invited guidance counselors and career coaches from the region to attend a full day’s worth of events at “Counselor Day.”
Counselors and career coaches from approximately 30 school systems attended the event.
Chancellor Hawkins and Dr. KeLeigh Pritchett, the new director of TROY’S Dual Enrollment Program, didn’t camouflage an ulterior motive for introducing this cost-saving measure to students and their parents.
Both - like myself - want as many of these high school students as possible to start their college careers with on-line courses at Troy … and then, after being exposed to the TROY culture and college professors, enroll at Troy as full-time students after they graduate from high school.
“This is a pathway to help these students enhance their futures,” Dr. Hawkins told reporters covering the event. “They don’t have to wait to high school graduation” to begin earning college credits.
“Yes, we definitely want these students to come to Troy after they graduate from high school,” said Dr. Pritchett.
According to several University officials who spoke Thursday, the program is viewed as a “pipeline to Troy.”
Dr. Hawkins said parents are particularly interested in expanding affordable dual enrollment programs, but so too are superintendents, principals and guidance counselors, who had the cardinal carpet rolled out for them Thursday.
Basically, many students or their parents “couldn’t afford” to participate in a dual enrollment program in the past, said Dr. Pritchett.
Students who are selected to enroll in TROY's “Early College” will choose from a wide range of courses to receive high school and college credit at the same time. These courses can satisfy TROY general education requirements and are designed to transfer to any college or university.
The most classes a high school student can take at one time is three, said Dr. Pritchett, with “most” dual enrollment students taking two classes at a time, she said, mentioning these are often the “basic” 100 and 200-level general education classes.
If a student takes a more demanding class - like calculus - they might want to stick to just one class, she said.
Pritchett also said many students already know they are going to pursue advanced degrees. To shorten the time they are in college, it makes sense to get as early a start on undergraduate classes as possible, she said.
Sohail Agboatwala, a senior administrator for the college, spoke briefly to school counselors and mentioned that his 10th grade daughter is already a dual enrollment Troy student.
For Agboatwala, making college as “affordable” as possible to students and their parents is tremendously important. He also loves the fact Troy University can expose its many attractive features to students who, hopefully, one day, will be students on the main campus.
The importance of guidance counselors …
Yesterday’s event - dubbed “Counselors Day” - also showed that Troy University officials understand how vital guidance counselors and career coaches are to Troy’s student recruitment efforts.
“School counselors are very important to us,” said Dr. Hawkins, adding the Dual Enrollment Program couldn’t be a success without assistance from these counselors.
The day’s itinerary included approximately five hours of events designed to provide counselors with vital information about Troy and its myriad academic programs, including gifts of goody bags, Q&A panel sessions, lunch and an optional campus tour.
In a very positive sign for the university, when Chancellor Hawkins asked for a show of hands for counselors and career coaches who had taken “at least one class at Troy,” the vast majority of hands in the Adams/Trojan Center ballroom went up.
*** (Thank you for sharing links to the Troy Citizen. Stories from the past six weeks are archived for everyone.) ***
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Troy University - By the Numbers
I’m always looking for figures and data that tell interesting stories and I culled several such statistics from today’s speakers, including …
8,000 - Approximate on-campus enrollment of Troy University in the fall semester of 2024.
10 - Number of college recruiters employed by Troy University with most assigned districts in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. (All 10 attended yesterday’s event).
30 - Approximate number of school systems that sent counselors and career coaches to Thursday’s “Early College” Counselors’ event.
250 to 300 - Number of dual-enrollment high school students currently taking on-line classes at Troy University (expected to grow to as many as 900 by next fall). Note: A few students attend class in person on campus.
$1,250 - Value of scholarships Troy awards to any and every current student who wants to study in another country.
$11 million - The corpus of the investment proceeds from the Troy car tag program. This money helps fund the above scholarships. $48 of every $50 paid for the Troy tags goes to this fund.
10 - Number of countries where Troy had campuses when Dr. Hawkins became chancellor in 1989.
26 - Number of military bases where Troy offered academic programs in 1989.
2,000 - Number of Troy University alumni from the nation of Vietnam.
19 - Home countries of 19 phD students taking on-line classes in Troy’s advanced degree leadership program.
8,000 - Number of Troy undergrads who will be required to take a new leadership class beginning with next year’s freshman class (every student).
30 - Number of years ago Troy started its on-line learning programs - one of the earliest programs in the nation.
40 - International students who attended Troy’s main campus when Dr. Hawkins became chancellor in 1989. (One of these students was Sohail Agboatwala from India). Troy now, or at one point, has/had more than 1,000 international students on its main campus.
4 - Number of phD programs TROY now offers.
2 - Number of years of academic instruction when Troy became a Normal School (a teacher’s training school) when founded in 1887.
70 - percent of Troy students who say their “faith” is very important to them.
200+ - Number of student organizations Troy offers students at its main campus.
0 - Number of current University presidents or CEOs in America who have served longer than Chancellor Jack Hawkins at the same university (35 years).
***
(Our subscriber numbers keep going up, up, up. Thank you very much to all our supporters. Today I also spoke to The Troy Exchange Club about this new venture. Subscriptions are available for no charge, but 16 percent of our subscribers have opted to make a donation to this business via a paid subscription. Subscribers will receive new content almost every day in their email.)
My wife also attended today's event. She is now a "Career Coach" for Ozark City Schools. Carrie participated in the tour of the new nursing building, which she said is "amazing." I'll write a story with photos on this beautiful new campus building in the next week or two.
It should be highlighted that on-campus enrollment at TROY's main campus (now 8,000) is an all-time record for the University, founded in 1887.
For context, the population of Troy, Alabama is approximately 19,000. Of course, some number of the citizens listed in the most-recent Census estimates of Troy's population would be "full-time residents" who are also students at Troy University. I need to find out how many of TROY's 8,000 students are considered citizens/residents of the city of Troy.