Students are returning to Douglas College and while their numbers are about the same as last year, the school says its plan to appeal to a changing student demographic is now apparent.
With an estimated 3,600 students enrolled at Coquitlam's David Lam campus for the fall semester, the college's director of communications and marketing, Dave Taylor, said the school's plan to appeal to more foreign-born and continuing education students is working.
"With demographics changing the way they are, it's a natural progression of fewer high-schoolers graduating and more immigrants coming," he said. "Education's becoming more of a lifelong thing and we've got new programs to tailor to those needs."
And while all of those new programs - post-degree math and sciences for teachers and a psycho-social rehabilitation diploma - are at Douglas' New Westminster campus, Taylor said David Lam's health care programs remain Coquitlam's biggest pull for students.
Among those, nursing is the most popular, with 1,200 students applying for just 60 openings, Taylor said. Nearly as popular is Coquitlam's animal health program, which Taylor said regularly attracts "hundreds of applicants" for just 30 seats.
In total, Douglas College's enrolment at both its David Lam and New Westminster campuses, as well as its Surrey Training Centre, is expected to top about 9,000 full-time students, with many more enrolled in short-term continuing education classes.
In January, Douglas College president Scott McAlpine announced an ambitious five-year plan that had at its centre the explicit goal of making Douglas College the "largest and most progressive baccalaureate degree-granting college in British Columbia" by 2015.
The exact numbers for enrolment won't be available until mid-September, when students finally settle into their programs -
