One year ago, what was known as the College of Lifelong Learning was struggling with decreasing enrollments, and talking of merging with Plymouth State College.
But the college – now called Granite State -is in the process of making some sweeping changes.
Armed with a new mission and a new name, Granite State College is hoping some new programs will open the door for more students.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Amy Quinton reports.
For more than 30 years what’s now Granite State College has provided adult education – especially for those who can’t attend a full time traditional college campus.
Heather Keyworth is one of those students.
At 29, she wanted to take a few classes at Plymouth State -- but discovered it was too difficult.
" You needed to be taking a certain amount of classes before you were even eligible for financial aid and I was a waitress and a bartender and there was just no way I could afford to do that."
Granite State College was able to provide her an affordable and flexible schedule of classes.
She even took some courses online.
"it has absolutely changed my life, I’m almost done with my associates degree in liberal arts I have four classes left and now I’m thinking about what I’m going to be doing for my bachelors degree."
Success stories like Keyworth’s have always been the goal of Granite State College.
But despite that mission, enrollment in the college has stagnated.
Dean of Enrollment Management Ron Blankenstein says the college hasn’t grown much beyond 4,000 students a year.
“ I’d say we’d been in that 4,000 plateau for a couple or four years, and as you know health care costs are rising, expenses are rising, lease costs go up so you can’t really afford to be flat without either increasing enrollments or decreasing expenses.â€
The college plans to do both.
During an open house of its new headquarters in Concord, Granite State College President Carol LaCroix announced a new initiative she hopes will attract students.
"We received word from the accrediting agency that we can start offering full baccalaureate programs online, it’s called BOLD for Baccalaureate on Line Degree Programs. "
The BOLD program would be the first complete online degree program offered within the university system.
Granite state will offer seven baccalaureate degree programs, two associate degrees and two certificate programs --all web-based.
No classroom attendance is required.
And that, Blakenstein hopes, will attract more out of state students.
"before online bachelors completion programs students really had to attend our college, so we only drew from NH, now with fully online programs, students can come from any part of the country, any part of the world."
Blakenstein says he’s already received inquiries about the programs from potential students in Rhode Island, Florida, Oklahoma and even Pakistan.
The ability to attract out of state students will also help bring down costs for in state students.
Southern New Hampshire University has been offering full degree programs on line for some time.
And that University’s Dean of Continuing and Online Education Karen Muncaster says changing to a full online program can be a challenge for any college.
“If you’re truly going to be online and not require your students come to campus, you have to have a way to have your students register online, pay on line, get their academic advising on line..all the things a university provides, they need to provide differentlyâ€
That’s one thing Granite State College has already taken care of – they’ve recently opened a call center in Concord, that also has a 24 hour web based help program.
Granite State College Alumna Edwina Landry took a few online courses when she was a student and thinks the BOLD initiative will help attract more students.
"As adults when you’re working and you have families and you have all these responsibilities you can’t always get into the classes during the day, even a night sometimes it’s hard to get into classrooms, so to be able to do this online in your own home is going to open up the doors to a lot of people."
Granite State college is hoping the BOLD initiative will help enrollment.
With baby boomers retiring, New Hampshire may soon face a workforce shortage.
College officials say the more education Granite State can offer students, the more ready they’ll be to compete in the job market.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.
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