In another example of the booming market in higher education in the northwest suburbs, Northern Illinois University plans to expand its Hoffman Estates campus now that it has surpassed its capacity.
NIU wants to expand its campus near the Sears, Roebuck and Co. headquarters by as much as 40 percent.
Officials at NIU’s main campus in De Kalb thought it would take at least five years to reach a capacity of 2,400 students annually in Hoffman Estates. But the school reached that level in 1994, two years after the campus opened. And because of intense demand for classes, NIU has rented space from Sears, and its current enrollment stands at 3,200.
The school opened with about 1,800 students.
NIU’s experience is similar to that of Chicago-based Roosevelt University, which in 1996 opened a $21 million branch campus in Schaumburg. NIU, Roosevelt, Harper College, Elgin Community College and other schools in the northwest are bustling with students.
The schools say interest in education is high in the area, with many adults working toward bachelor’s and secondary degrees to advance their careers.
The area also is rich in employers who have job-training funds to spend and new employees to train in a period of strong economic growth. Many of these companies are turning to the area’s colleges to do that job.
“There is a significant amount of unmet need right now,” said Melanie Magara, NIU’s director of public affairs. “People are moving out to the suburbs, and the major employers are out there. It seems that the trend for suburbanites to seek continuing education close to home is only going to grow.”
The northwest suburbs have one of the highest job-growth rates in the country. And with employees moving closer to their jobs, the population is expected to keep growing well into the next century.
Like other businesses, the colleges and universities are simply following their customers, education experts say. And for many schools, that means opening branch campuses.
“They’re trying to respond to the need of students. Some of these students can’t leave their jobs or families and go 100 miles away” to attend classes, said Stanley Ikenberry, president of the Washington-based American Council on Education and former president of the University of Illinois. “The alternative is to try to bring learning opportunities closer to them.”
More Top Picks Workbenches
Enrollment growth at Roosevelt’s old Arlington Heights campus forced the school to seek more space. It moved to Schaumburg in 1996. The last five years have been particularly good growth years for Roosevelt in the northwest suburbs, said John Joseph, executive officer at Roosevelt’s Schaumburg campus.
“We’re in a great location here, and it’s sort of the center of gravity of the residential and corporate growth,” Joseph said. “More people who are employed out here want to continue their education. It definitely relates to the growth in the economy out here.”
The students pushing up enrollments at many suburban campuses aren’t typical 18-year-old freshmen.
At NIU’s Hoffman Estates campus, the typical student is 30 years old. Most students at the Hoffman Estates campus also live and work in the north and northwest suburbs, some traveling as far away as Wisconsin.
About 90 percent are pursuing graduate degrees. They are working parents and corporate types looking to further their educations–many of them courtesy of local companies.
In Palatine, Harper College has witnessed rapid growth over the last five years in its adult- and workplace-education programs. One area of major expansion has been in providing education and training to employees of local companies, such as Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc.
The college has trained employees for many businesses, offering everything from classes in English as a second language to instruction in computers and managing meetings.
Five years ago, Harper trained about 2,000 employees annually. Now the number is about 6,000, officials said.
“We have a lot of corporations in the area, and they support education. They want a trained and educated work force,” said Ed Dolan, Harper’s vice president for academic affairs.
Dolan projects that Harper’s enrollment of 25,000 students will increase as much as 20 percent in the next few years.
Elgin Community College, meanwhile, has seen steady enrollment growth for more than a decade. More than 24,000 students take classes there annually.