Tech Sees Growth in Graduate and Masters Program

Tennessee Tech seeing growth in the graduate and masters programs in the past year, especially among people around in the workforce.

Interim Associate Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Dr. Julie Baker said the programs have shown about a 3.5 percent increase in enrollment for graduate and masters programs. Baker said more students are entering graduate programs right after undergraduate graduation.

“We also have that population that you just mentioned of people who are already in the workforce and they want to come back for different reasons,” Baker said. “And so sometimes it’s professional development for their work and sometimes it’s for a pay increase, but we are really trying to accommodate that population of graduate students.”

Baker said the University started a new marketing campaign two years ago to target students who are already working full-time jobs. Baker said the university is offering more courses online to meet industry demands.

“Our programs and the deans of the colleges and the department chairs and everyone has really focused in on grad programs and looking at what our stakeholders want and what they need in terms of employment and advancement in their career and goals and so that’s the need we are trying to meet.”

Baker said the university has added more online courses to help those students balance work and school.

“We have in place some programs that are for seven-week classes,” Baker said. “So you are able to take one class for seven weeks because maybe you have something going on at one particular time of the semester where you know that you will be busy in the second half of the semester but it fits well to take one class in your first seven weeks of the semester and so those some of the things that we are doing in offering flexibility to students.”

Baker said the university will start another marketing campaign to attract more students for next year. Baker said this fall semester the university has 1,324 students and the goal for next fall is to reach 1,400 students.