As MacKay points out, schools like Hesser may have actually enjoyed a boost in enrollment thanks to the recession. This tends to happen at community colleges, because, like Hesser, their market niche is career-focused, non-traditional students. When folks are laid off en masse, many of them are driven to the classrooms of these schools in an effort to improve their chances of employment. This could explain why Hesser’s fall enrollment shot up from 3,800 in 2008 to more than 4,500 in 2009. MacKay believes it was the recovery, perhaps more than the recession, that caused Hesser to suffer enrollment declines. “I think individuals have decided they don’t need to pursue additional degrees or credentials in order to obtain a job, and they’re … more likely to be fully employed,” MacKay said. While the community college system has seen some enrollment declines in recent years due to the recovery, they weren’t as dramatic as Hesser’s. Brittingham says the region’s colleges are all fighting over an increasingly scarce resource: high school graduates. “The demographics of enrolling traditional-age students are very difficult in New England and in the northern part of the Midwest. And in New England, the farther north you go, the harder it gets,” Brittingham said. Horgan says the answer is to cast a wider net. ”Nineteen percent of the marketplace is that 18- to 22-year-old. The other 81 percent is a more non-traditional student that is looking to complete their education and ultimately improve their life and their career,” Horgan said. Shannon Reid, New Hampshire Community College System spokesperson, says the community colleges we know today evolved over the past several decades, with Manchester Community College alone having gone through eight name changes in its lifetime. For most of their history, they were technical schools with
a vocational mission. Students went there to learn welding and automotive mechanics. “In about the 1990s, the colleges began to broaden their mission,” Reid said in an email. She says this played out partly in the form of expanded course offerings at the community colleges, which coincided with a rebranding from technical colleges to community colleges. But it also has a great deal to do with expanding articulation agreements with four-year schools, allowing community college students to more easily transfer to four-year schools. “The university system and the community college system have worked hard on breaking down those articulation barriers,” MacKay said. “There was some bias there, some prejudice [against community colleges].” Manchester Community College President Susan Huard says this flexibility is to better meet student needs. “We’re not just one thing. We’re not just technical, and we’re not just transfer or business or health care. We have the flexibility of moving our resources depending on what’s happening with the economy,” Huard said. Now that students can more easily use the community colleges as gateway schools to higher degrees, and with cheaper tuition, MacKay believes Hesser could no longer compete. Horgan agrees. “I think competition with the community colleges was one of many factors that probably led to Hesser/Mount Washington closing,” Horgan said. According to the College Scorecard, community colleges have also offered better outcomes to students. The median annual salary of MCC graduates after 10 years was $33,000, which is about the national average. Salaries after graduating from Nashua Community College were $34,500, and from NHTI, $37,700. The salary for Hesser grads was below the national average at $30,900. Given this competitive climate, Horgan says, in the past decade or so, nonprofits like SNHU have stepped up their role in the
Kenneth Galeucia buys Hesser.
Joel H. Hesser founded Hesser Business College.
NH School of Accounting & Secretarial Science was founded.
Renamed New Hampshire College of Accounting & Commerce.
Became a nonprofit.
HIPPO | DECEMBER 17 - DECEMBER 23, 2015 | PAGE 16
Renamed New Hampshire College.
online education sector — a sector Horgan says had traditionally been the domain of the for-profits. MacKay echoes this. “A number of not-for-profit institutions have decided that they need to be in the online or distance education space and have made significant investments in entering that space,” MacKay said. Entering that space is crucial for two reasons. The first is demographics. The 80/20 split of non-traditional to traditional students is a refrain often repeated by SNHU President Paul LeBlanc, who has been at the helm since 2003 and is widely credited for expanding the school’s online options. “If you take a look at the pattern, adults are moving ... online,” LeBlanc said. The second reason is economy of scale: Schools can serve an exponentially greater number of students with far less overhead. As college costs skyrocket, schools are under increased pressure to control those costs. But achieving economy of scale is still a point of controversy in the higher ed world. University of New Hampshire president Mark Huddleston criticized what he called “nearly-for-profit” online colleges during his 2014 State of the University address, saying, “The first thing we shouldn’t do is yield to pressures to commodify higher education, turn students into customers, and drive relentlessly to lower unit costs of production.” LeBlanc argues that since SNHU does not receive tax dollars as a private institution, it needs to be as nimble as a business in order to be successful. “I think [being a private university] forces us in some ways to run more efficiently. We have to be more responsive. No one’s going to come in and rescue us,” LeBlanc said. “We’re able to get [programs] up and running faster.” Marketing has also been crucial for SNHU growth. One of the first things LeBlanc did when he started in 2003 was have an outside marketing survey done about name recognition. Nobody knew who SNHU was. “[Name recognition] was really low. I
Acquired by Quest Education Corporation.
SNHU Online launched.
Turned 100. Kaplan purchased Quest.
New Hampshire College becomes SNHU.
Enrollment peaked at 4,512.
Paul LeBlanc becomes president.
mean, it was low in New Hampshire, and we were here. Never mind Mass. and the rest of New England,” LeBlanc said. About five years ago, he made it his mission to build a national brand, and they got to work with marketing.
During the 1980s and ’90s, Dick Galeucia says, Hesser was making more than $1 million in annual net profit, save for a couple years in the ’80s when it lost money. But with great success comes more government oversight, especially if you are a for-profit school, Galeucia said. He said during the 20 or so years he was there, the school was audited by the IRS about a dozen times. “And, of course, the [U.S.] Department of Education made it known they wanted to put for-profit schools out of business,” Galeucia said. “We were the ‘money-hungry’ guys.” Back then, the critical sentiment among regulators, while a thorn in the side of Hesser, was not the killing blow more recent government crackdowns have been. Since 2010, when former Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa led the charge, the Government Accountability Office, the White House and U.S. Attorneys General have been aggressively mobilized against for-profits. During Galeucia’s time at the school, Hesser was accredited by a NEASC commission for career and technical colleges and vocational high schools. But in 2006 NEASC did away with that commission, and all the community colleges plus Hesser transitioned to the same higher ed commission that accredited all the four-year higher ed institutions in New England.
After the school went corporate, things began to change. In the past 17 years (at the end of Quest’s ownership and while it was owned by Kaplan), Hesser saw at least six presidents, not including interim or acting presidents. According to the New Hampshire Department of Education, Robert Moon took over
Re-launched as Mount Washington College. Concord & Portsmouth campuses closed.
Launch of College for America.
Salem & Nashua campuses closed.
Announced that MWC will close by spring.