GPC stretches to accommodate highest ever enrollment

by Jennifer Johnson
The Collegian

There's a reason that GPC is experiencing such growing pains-this fall semester, the institution has enrolled the highest number of students in its 43 year history. 21,562 students now attend our campuses or log in to our online courses.
Enrollment is 7.2% higher than it was last fall, according to the director of the office of institutional and research planning, Dr. Godfrey Fuji Noe. This is in spite of the slow abandonment of the Lawrenceville campus off of Collins Hill Road and Highway 316.

Currently, only returning GPC students, transfers and transient students are able to take classes on Lawrenceville campus. New college students who began this semester (with the exception of Nursing and Joint Enrollment students) have been required to take their courses at one of the other GPC campuses or online as the college wean their students from the site of the new Georgia Gwinnett College.

As directed, students from Lawrenceville are finding their way to other GPC campuses, which may account for the noticeable increase at the Dunwoody location. The campus that has parking spaces for approximately 7,000 students now accommodates more than 9,000. A new parking deck is currently under construction.

Several new projects that will ease the student squeeze are in various stages of planning and implementation around the perimeter. (See list below for details.)
Furthermore, GPC and Georgia State University recently collaborated in a request for funds for new construction in Fulton County and have received upwards of 12 million for the construction of a new classroom building in Alpharetta.

But for the time being, and for many students this semester, class sizes have increased and parking spots may be a little harder to find.

New projects at GPC:
• New parking deck on Dunwoody
• New Student Center on Decatur
• New parking structure and entrance for Clarkston
• New Student Center and Library building for Newton
• New academic building on Dunwoody
• Major renovation of a Dunwoody building
• Major renovations of two buildings on Clarkston