Posted: Sept. 1, 2009 |(0) Comments

Glendale — Up to 150 students will bring life to the new Bryant & Stratton campus at the Bayshore Town Center when classes start Sept. 9.

The brand new facility located on the northeast corner of Silver Spring Drive and Port Washington Road takes up 37,000 square feet on the third floor of the turreted building that is also home to Trader Joe's.

"We would like to use the turret as a symbol for this campus," said Pete Pavonne, director of the three Milwaukee colleges. The others are located downtown in Milwaukee and in Wauwatosa.

The Bayshore campus will bring the college career education offered by Bryant & Stratton to the North Shore.

"We will eventually max out at 650 students," said Ron Lonzo, the campus director at the Bayshore site.

Variety of degrees, programs

Bryant & Stratton offers both associate and bachelor's degrees in a number of fields. The Bayshore site has state-of-the-art science, medical and computer laboratories, 17 classrooms with swaths of windows letting in the light, a library and learning lab. Lonzo said the college also plans to offer the community free access to its computer lab and library when space is available.

The college offers bachelor's degrees in general management, information technology, financial services and criminal justice and associate degrees in accounting, administrative assistant, business, criminal justice, graphic design, human resources specialist, network technology, security technology, interactive media design, legal administrative assistant, medical assisting, nursing and paralegal studies. Lonzo said they are awaiting approval for a four-year nursing program.

"We try to keep classes at the 12- to 15-student level," Lonzo said. "This term some will have six to eight students.

The majority of students at Bryant & Stratton are non-traditional, older than the traditional college student who starts right after high school graduation. Lonzo said he expects the Bayshore site will have roughly 25 percent traditional students, higher than the typical 20 percent found at other campuses.

Lonzo said a 20 percent increase in enrollment in the 2008-2009 school year led to the decision to open a third campus.

Lonzo said the increase is not only from people who have lost jobs but also from those who want to improve their job skills in order to retain current employment or to be prepared to change jobs. The college schedules its classes to accommodate students who work, with a range of courses offered both in the daytime, evening and on Saturdays.

Bryant & Stratton is offering $3,000 Retraining Opportunity Grants for displaced workers and $1,500 Veterans Grants for former servicemen.

Enrollment up elsewhere

Officials at Cardinal Stritch and Concordia universities have also seen increases in enrollment despite the recession.

"The number of traditional students is up almost 10 percent," said Joanne Williams, vice president of marketing and human relations at Cardinal Stritch University. "We are doing very well. Our purpose is to serve the underserved."

The university's College of Business Management, for instance, offers night classes. The university also offers classes at several locations other than the main campus, which straddles Glendale and Fox Point.

The recession has had an impact on student enrollment but it is hard to quantify.

"The effect is anecdotal," she said. "We have very few students who come in and say they want to go back to school because they are losing a job."

Michael Besch, vice president of academic operations at Concordia University in Mequon, said studies have shown that when the economy is bad, it is good for education. That may be true in certain sectors, he said, but most adults enroll in higher education just before the economy gets bad.

"They still have jobs and (tuition) reimbursement plans," he said.

At Concordia, undergraduate traditional student enrollment has increased 5 percent to 6 percent a year over the last 10 years, while graduate students have increased 12 percent to 14 percent a year for the same time period.