Opinion: At Greenville Tech, there’s no community college ‘gloom or doom’

On April 5, The Greenville News featured a story from The Hechinger Report titled “The reckoning is here: Community colleges are reeling.” The article highlighted the experience of a student in Washington State, who became frustrated with red tape at his local community college and dropped out. Based on this student’s negative story and two others nationwide, the article made the blanket statement that community colleges are failing their students, and consumers are abandoning them in droves.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth from where I’m sitting, in the president’s office at Greenville Technical College (GTC). Consumers are not abandoning this college. In fact, our enrollment has been up double digits for the past two terms and counting.