Friday, June 29, 2007

South Harmon Institute of Technology Wannabe


Just what we need—another college. Heck, even the good ones out there are having trouble filling the incoming class. Of course, colleges like Notre Dame and Harvard have so many applicants that they can afford to be choosy. The bulk of the other regional and national universities struggle and suffer when enrollment and credit hours fall short.

Now I know a thing or two about sending a kid to college as the regular readers here know. Scotty is off to Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, this August. Well, that is if he finishes getting the loans lined up. He definitely couldn’t afford to go to any college, even Diddly-Squat U, without some kind of financial aid.

So, I read with a little amusement the story in this afternoon’s Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog reporting on an Atlanta Journal Constitution story about Gwinnett College in Georgia. Never heard of the place. There are about 6 gazillion other colleges and universities, and I can’t be everywhere to know about them all. Turns out, this is a new college that the Georgia folks cooked up. Well, they had actually been some sort of satellite school for a couple of other universities, and now they are going off on their own with plenty of state funding—just not enough students.

Despite the best efforts of the recruiters in Gwinnett County who swooped down on the malls in the area among other strategies, they only have 435 students when they were thinking maybe 3,000. Oooops. One little problem could be that the college is not yet accredited and the students can’t get federal financial aid and are forced to rely on just state HOPE funds or their own resources, hardly enough to make students beat a beeline to the institution’s doors.

Hey, guys. I have a suggestion for you. Rent that movie, Accepted—the one that’s got that cute Apple Mac ad guy in it, although y’all have a better name with Gwinnett College. The name of the “institution” in the movie was South Harmon Institute of Technology.

Yet, despite smart-ass bloggers like me, I have faith that Gwinnett College will succeed. How can it help but triumph with a positive-thinking president like Daniel Kaufman. "This is not Ed's Barber College," he said recently. "We're going to grow and grow."

4 comments:

Jackie said...

Shame they don't open a few up here where we haven't enough lecturers or colleges.

Education here a problem at the moment as the teachers at Govenment schools have been on strike for weeks which will have a huge impact on those wishing to go to College or University next year.

Happily Oprah's Leadership School for underprivileged girls appears to be doing well and she popped over from the States last week to take them to "The Lion King" Premier which must have been a real treat as I doubt any had ever even been to live theatre before never mind a world class production.

Sheila said...

Sorry you are having problems with the strike and I hope the parties resolve it soon. Distance learning seems to be the big thing in the States but I just think a real education is enhanced by a personal give and take.

Strangely, many here criticized Oprah's efforts. I think she has every right to use her money wherever she darned well thinks it'll do some good. I'm sure these girls will appreciate it. Too bad more people with huge amounts of money don't put it to good use while they are alive and see the effect it can have on changing lives.

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