Enrollment in Grove City College’s summer online courses is up sharply over previous years.
Dr. Christy L. Crute, executive director of Graduate and Online Programs and professor of Business Analytics, attributes the increase to the quality of the courses and rising demand for an online version of the academically excellent and Christ-centered education students expect from the College.
“The summer program is roughly double last year's summer enrollments with way more than 1,000 course seats taken by hundreds of learners of all types,” Crute said. “Most are using the summer to advance their progress in college or to get ahead in their careers.”
The audience for online courses is comprised of adult part-time learners, undergraduate students and dual enrolled students who are taking college courses – and earning transferable college credits – while still in high school.
In recent years, Grove City College invested intentionally in online learning to reach interested students where they are and provide them a robust selection of courses that match the quality of those offered to full-time residential students. That focus was one of the reasons that Grove City College was able to shift swiftly to remote instruction when the coronavirus pandemic forced students to leave campus and finish the spring semester online.
Several factors are driving the spike in summer online enrollment, Crute said.
“Our faculty have done an amazing job of offering a variety of courses that are highly interesting to our students in great study areas like business, calculus and statistics, humanities, engineering, and many others. They seem to have captured the attention of a national audience,” she said.
The College’s decision to offer all rising college freshmen a special price on online courses contributed to the record numbers. The College’s desire to “give back” during the pandemic by making courses more affordable to incoming freshmen is providing students with something to do in a summer where work and play opportunities are severely limited, she said.
Finally, dual-enrolled high school students are taking advantage of the opportunity to earn college credits now that can reduce both the cost and the time it takes to earn an undergraduate degree. “The online portion of our college-in-high school program continues to expand its reach. In less than one year, we have attracted students from 19 states around the country and overseas,” Crute said.
Registration is now open for Late Summer Online courses. To find out more, visit www.gcc.edu/summeronline.