Welcome Back, Pierce College
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The best back-to-school news to come out of Pierce College this year is the sheer number of students going back to school.
Elementary, middle and high schools in the San Fernando Valley have overcrowding to deal with, but Pierce’s problem has been the opposite. Enrollment over the past decade had dropped by half. The school was saddled with a deficit and its buildings and facilities were in sad shape. Students and faculty were demoralized.
But a year into the tenure of Pierce President Darroch “Rocky” Young, who was hired to help turn the troubled campus around, change is underway.
Fall enrollment is up from 12,992 last year to 14,744, the kind of increase not seen since the two-year college’s heyday in the 1960s. Classrooms are newly air-conditioned. Finances are stable.
Students, faculty members and administrators, including Young, celebrated the first week of school with balloons, cheerleaders and a picnic lunch.
“We’re the come-back kids,” said a Pierce College spokesman.
All we can add is: Welcome back.
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