Lucretia Brown
Published: February 8, 2006
Every year thousands of students, ranging in age from elementary school to senior citizens, attend PJC. Although the college’s annual report says the average age of students is 28, in fact, age varies depending the types of classes students take.
The reason there is such a broad age group range is PJC has six different educational categories. Since there is a significant difference between the categories, the average age of students varies from category to category. The statistical research of the average age of students, like all other statistic research material, tells only a small portion of the story.
One category is special objectives. Dual enrollment students are in this category. They are a very large group of students, according to PJC’s director of institutional research and effectiveness, Dr. Marshall McLeod.
“We have 1,300, 1,400 or 1,500 every year who are in public high schools, home schools or in private high schools, who either take a course in their high school for dual enrollment, or they come to PJC,” McLeod said.
Also in the special objectives category are transitory students. These are students who take just one or two courses at PJC while they are attending a university. Some of these students take distance learning classes as well. Students choose to do this because it is cheaper and it can take less time to complete a course, especially if the student takes classes during the summer, according to McLeod.
The mean age in the special objectives category is 21 years old.
The associates of arts majors are in a second category.
“These are transfer students. These students come to PJC to get their AA degree with the intention of transferring to a university somewhere,” McLeod said. Here, the average age of students is 24.
The next group is adult general education. There are different groups of people who are in this category. Adult high school, adult basic education and the GED program are the three main programs in this category.
“We also have English as a second language classes in this program,” McLeod said.
“Because these are usually older than high school students, the average age for these adult general education students was 26 years old,” McLeod said.
Another group is the vocational certificate students.
“Vocation credit means that it’s not college credit,” McLeod said.
Examples of vocational credits are the licensed practical nurse program, nurse’s aide and cosmetology.
The mean age in this category is 28, down from 29 in the 2004-05 school year.
The fifth category is the occupation and career group. This group consists of students who want their AS or AAS degree and get a job as soon as they leave PJC. The average age for these students is 30.
Finally, there are the community instructional services students also known as continuing education students.
“Because we have a lot of older people in this, the average age is significantly higher. In 2004-05, the average age was 40 years. The year before, it was 43,” McLeod said.
Mcleod believes that this decline has a lot to do with the hurricanes.
“The hurricanes disrupted people’s lives who had been taking a lot of courses here, especially older folks,” he said.
Because PJC has such diverse programs, ranging from gymnastics lessons for young children to credit courses for adults, the marketing department must find ways to reach everybody. Since there has been a decrease in student enrollment within the past year, advertising has, if anything, increased, according to Marketing Director Elizabeth Hewey.
McLeod and Hewey both agree that the students PJC lost will eventually return. Once this happens, the age average will more than likely go back up.
“It will take a couple of years,” Hewey said.