Around WakeTech
New Year With Major Milestone
RALEIGH, N.C. (August 17, 2016) - Wake Tech’s 2016-17 academic year is off to a record-breaking start: For the first time ever, fall semester enrollment has reached more than 23,000 students! The college is also welcoming the largest group of new students in its 50+- year history! Wake Tech’s five campuses and three training centers opened Wednesday, August 17, with 1,500 new parking spaces to accommodate increased traffic.
Total enrollment for fall is 23,003, and more than 6,000 of those are students new to Wake Tech – that’s up 8% from last fall! Ninety-one percent of seats are filled. While most other community colleges are seeing enrollment declines as unemployment rates improve, Wake Tech is defying both state and nationwide trends.
The college continues to expand capacity to accommodate community demand for education and training:
New facilities: On the Northern Wake Campus, a new building housing social sciences, biology, and a new STEM lab will allow students to conduct research – something that is new for Wake Tech and rare for a community college. Building H also offers e-learning labs to train and support online instructors. Wake Tech has more online students than any other community college in North Carolina, and online courses and programs are one way the college accommodates rapid growth. The Northern Wake Campus has also added a shuttle service.
Fall semester brings new curriculum programs in IT Software and Web Development, IT Mobile Application Developer, and Mission Critical Operations (MCO). The new MCO program prepares students for employment in hospitals, banks, data storage facilities, and other settings, keeping vital systems such as HVAC, electrical, and data management functioning around the clock. The program offers an associate’s degree and four certificates.
New campus: A brand new campus is in progress for Wake Tech in Morrisville. Groundbreaking for the RTP Campus took place earlier this month. The campus will be a “next-generation learning environment,” focused on the needs of individuals and corporations in western Wake County and Research Triangle Park. The campus is slated to open spring of 2018.
Wake Tech continuously expands programs, adds faculty, and when possible, constructs new facilities; it also builds capacity by adding online course offerings. Wake Tech is the largest of North Carolina’s 58 community colleges – with more than 70,000 students – and has more online students than any other community college in the state.
