Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland has seen “mixed financial impacts” from the COVID-19 Pandemic.
President Dr. Paul Carlsen says they had to quickly move 691 class offerings from face-to-face to on-line in two weeks implementing a very liberal refund policy in April.
Carlsen told SeehaferNews.com, “We had students who signed up for face-to-face and had to move online through no choice of their own. That wasn’t what they signed up for. We gave those students the opportunity to drop the class and get a full refund up to a week before the end of the course.”
They had quite a few students take advantage of that, with over $120,000 returned to students.
In May, applications to the Manitowoc County College went up 98% compared to May of 2019. Carlsen explained that part of the reason for that is the fact that they prepare the “essential workers”. “There are folks who were furloughed early in this pandemic as part of the Safer at Home order, and they are thinking ‘I don’t want to be furloughed again the next time the economy goes south’,” Carlsen said. “They are looking at LTC to get them those skills.”
He added, “Folks maybe had plans to go to the other side of the state for college or across the country, and those colleges have signs up that say ‘Closed until Further Notice’, or are barely operable,…Folks are looking at it and saying ‘I’m not really that interested in that, but I want to continue my education. I’m gonna spend some time at Lakeshore Technical College before I transfer on.’”
Dr. Carlsen tells SeehaferNews.com they’ve worked hard in building strong transfer relationships with multiple state colleges and universities and LTC is becoming a more attractive transfer opportunity. “We’re excited for the future.”
