With President Obama encouraging people to head back to school and thousands of people losing their jobs, it should come as no surprise that more people than usual are deciding to head back to school. After all, going back to college is a great way to pursue a new career path. Unfortunately, the New York Times is reporting http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/education/12community.html that some community colleges are being forced to turn potential students away. Why? They simply don’t have the room for all of the people who are trying to head back to school.

“Enrollment has been growing steadily, but this was a tidal wave for us this fall,” said the president of LaGuardia Community College, Gail O. Mellow, in the article. “I’ve never seen anything like this. We used to pretty much be an open door.”

Mellow further commented that the student body at the school has increased by nearly 50% over the past ten years.

In the past, the six community colleges located throughout New York city, all of which are part of the City University of New York, have accepted applications all the way until about one week before classes started. This way, students had plenty of time to get their financial aid in order, to get registered for classes and to get the necessary immunizations. This year, however, LaGuardia stopped accepting applications on July 30, while the Borough of Manhattan Community College stopped accepting applications in late June. Hostos, Bronx and Queensborough Community Colleges also quit accepting applications by the first half of August, which made Kingsborough Community College the only one to continue with its usual application deadline.

Despite the fact that community colleges are finding themselves turning students away, those who do manage to get enrolled are facing some unfortunate situations. For example, many report having to wait 45 minutes or more in order to use the student computer labs. In addition, classes are being offered as early as 6:45 in the morning in order to cram more coursework into each day.

Of course, if you decide to attend an online school, you won’t have to worry about your classes being too full or about having to wait your turn to use the facilities. Rather, you can do everything you need for school all from the comfort of home!