Colleges and universities are flooding into the Interstate 75 corridor between Cincinnati and Springfield, competing for a growing number of students as higher education increasingly becomes a necessity for employment.
The boom is part of a trend throughout the region and the state. Enrollments at regional campuses and community colleges, which often serve older students at multiple locations, leapt from 74,000 in 2000 to 252,000 in 2010, according to Ohio Board of Regents data. Working students, typically with families, are the fastest growing type of college student, data shows.
More than 12,000 area students now attend college at satellite campuses stretching from Logan to Butler and Warren counties. Students have more options and schools are growing enrollments while facing increasing competition.
“If I am going to be in businesses, I better be flexible,” said George Sehi, dean of Sinclair Community College’s Courseview campus in Mason. “People are coming here for training, cross-training and retraining. We have exceeded our enrollment projections every quarter.”
Long gone are the days when a residential campus was a student’s only option. Branch and satellite campuses have been around for half a century.
Now students can blend together not only courses from different college locations, but from different schools.
Sinclair is the only public college with a brick and mortar site Warren County, but the school has partnership agreements with Wright State University, Wilmington College, University of Dayton and University of Cincinnati, which all have either offered classes at the Courseview campus or plan to.
The demand is obvious; enrollments in Mason jumped from 350 students in 2007 to nearly 1,200 today.
Casie Gebhart, a nursing major from Middletown in her third year at Miami’s regional campuses, said she needed convenient options in order to continue her education. “I know a lot of students who struggle with money and finding a way to get to school,” Gebhart said. “It is extremely important. Not everyone has the means to travel.”
Miami University has been the only public higher education option in Butler County for nearly 50 years. The university now has three regional campuses — in Hamilton, Middletown and West Chester — and a new collaborative ready to open near the Atrium Medical Center in Middletown where Gebhart will complete her training as a nurse.
But Miami will not be alone for long. Cincinnati State Technical and Community College is nearing a deal that could bring a branch campus to city-owned buildings in downtown Middletown. The college plans to offer a variety of programs including hospitality, allied health and associate degrees in a market Miami has dominated for decades.
Larry Mulligan, Middletown’s mayor, said the new branch campus would be a big win for a city working to revitalize downtown. “It’s going to have a huge impact. The potential of bringing students and instructors in will help with the revitalization of downtown,” he said.
Despite the closeness of the two campuses and the likelihood some class offerings will overlap, officials from both schools maintain they wouldn’t compete for the same students.
“Not really,” said Jean Manning, spokeswoman for Cincinnati State. “One of the things we are looking at is working with Miami. Let’s not forget there are a whole demographic of students that are not ready for the rigor of a Miami-type degree. Serving those students is our business, not their business.”
Leaders from a number of higher education options in the I-75 corridor agree there is a large enough “pie” for every school.
G. Michael Pratt, dean of regional campuses for Miami, said Cincinnati State’s entrance into Butler County doesn’t worry him.
“I don’t see them as a rival to us,” Pratt said. “We are a powerhouse institution that will continue to recruit the kind of students we want. I don’t see them as a great concern.”
Cincinnati State is working with city officials to develop a plan to occupy several buildings the city acquired for $475,000. Different options are being explored, Manning said, including working with a real estate firm, Industrial Reality Group, which is redeveloping the former General Motors plant in Moraine. IRG would renovate the buildings and then lease to the college, according to a recent memorandum of understanding the company signed with the city. Or Cincinnati State could fund the project on its own if grants and tax incentives are available.
Manning thinks the college could draw 500 students including some who now commute to the Cincinnati campus, helping to free up space there.