Georgia's governor says a program to ease college admission is boosting enrollment

Georgia college enrollment is up significantly and Gov. Brian Kemp is crediting a program that sends letters to high school seniors urging them apply for admission.

Preliminary numbers show enrollment rose 9% at technical colleges and 6% at state universities and colleges this fall compared to last year, the Republican governor said Friday at his annual workforce summit in Atlanta.

The Georgia Match program sent 132,000 letters promising high school seniors admission based on their grades and a streamlined application. Applications to technical colleges rose 26%, while those to public universities and colleges rose 10%, Kemp said.

Kemp and others say students can earn more and give the state a better-qualified workforce by continuing their education. The governor also said that making Georgia the "top state for talent" is key to driving economic growth.

"If we want to ensure companies continue to choose Georgia, we need to grow a whole army of new workers," Kemp told attendees at the Georgia World Congress Center.

The Georgia Match program is part of a nationwide trend called direct admission. The idea is to reach students who haven't been considering going to college. Kemp said more than half the students who received a letter applied for admission to a public Georgia college.

All Georgia high school graduates are eligible to apply to a technical college, and the letters indicate which state colleges and universities a student is eligible for, using grades the state already collects through its HOPE Scholarship program.

Georgia's 22 technical colleges are participating, as well as 23 of 26 University System of Georgia institutions. The University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia College and State University aren't participating because they require a standardized test and consider additional factors before offering admission.

The Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education has projected, based on birth rates and migration, that the number of Georgia high school students graduating in 2037 will be 12% smaller than in 2025.

"We've got to figure out how to find more people," Kemp said. "And so Georgia Match was designed to do that."

Idaho pioneered direct admissions in 2015 and saw its population of new college students grow by more than 8%. In-state enrollment increased by almost 12% over two years.

Experts say many students don't know if they're qualified for college or how to apply.

"A lot of these individuals are first-time higher education students," Kemp said. "Their families don't know the opportunities that they have."

Greg Dozier, commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia, said the program is helping increase student numbers after years of decline in his system.

"What that means for us is, is we're actually seeing the workforce of the future coming in to us as a first choice," Dozier said.

Letters will go out to high school seniors again this October, with most public colleges and universities waiving application fees in November, said Chris Green of the Georgia Student Finance Commission. More than 1,000 adults who recently completed a high school equivalency diploma will also get letters, he said.

This year, for the first time, students can send a transcript directly from the program's GAfutures.org website to a college to speed their application, Green said.