H. Neil Matkin, District President, Collin College

Technical education continues to be one of the biggest growing trends in higher education. “We’ve got more students than ever going into career and technical education, earning medical licensures and certificates and degrees in everything from welding and automotive repair to construction management, among others. We’re seeing a lot of growth in those areas that lead to a faster entrance into the workplace,” Dr. Neil Matkin, district president of Collin College, told Invest:.

What strategies are you using for student attraction and retention?

Last year, our enrollment grew by almost 8% over fall 2022. This year, it will likely be a 6% or 7% increase over last fall. We have amazing faculty who challenge students’ intellect, creative thought, and frankly, help them become excited about their future. Our professors engage students and create a positive learning environment.  Outside the classroom, students can represent Collin College in basketball, tennis, golf, and esports, with volleyball coming soon. The college also offers more than 60 student organizations, a host of intramurals, and academic and student support services ranging from an Academic Planning Coach Program to free tutoring. 

Two prime examples of how Collin College follows the motto of putting students first are our new academic partnerships designed to streamline the pathway to bachelor’s degrees and save students thousands of dollars. This year, the college launched the Collin College Academic Alliance, a partnership with Texas State University and The University of Texas at Dallas, and the Texas A&M Engineering Academy at Collin College. Both new co-enrollment programs allow students to stay in Collin County and earn multiple bachelor’s degrees while saving more than $20,000.

We also have had incredible growth in our dual credit population thanks to terrific partnerships with our local school districts. Just last year, we had approximately 175 students who earned an associate degree before even walking the stage for their high school diplomas. It’s an exciting time to be at Collin College and our students are the beneficiaries.

How do you create new education programs to serve community and business needs?

An example is our fourth bachelor’s – Clinical Operations Management. We visited with all 15 of the major hospitals, all the CEOs, and medical teams, and we listened closely. They have a variety of specialists, such as radiologists and hospital professionals, who need training. This degree received input from all the hospitals. We created a path to give these specialists and others the supervisory, data, and budgeting skills that maybe their specialty didn’t give them. This degree prepares them to take a greater leadership role in the hospital. 

We launched the program last fall, and it has been a phenomenal success for us. We’re excited about relevant partnerships. The key word there for me is relevance. We’re relevant to what the community needs because we’re listening. Our corporate partners are telling us what they need, and we do what we can to respond.

What trends do you see in the education sector?

We have more students than ever going into career and technical education, earning medical licensures and certificates and degrees in everything from welding and automotive repair to construction management, among others. We have more and more students who are going into trades and earning their degrees, certificates, and licensures, and going right to work. We also still have a tremendous number of students who are transferring to universities, both in and out of the state. We’ve not given that up at all, but we’re seeing more and more students who want technical careers. They want a faster route to the workforce. 

How do you foster or create leadership among your students? 

Our campuses have student organizations and a robust student services department that does things like working with SkillsUSA; a national organization dedicated to developing the country’s workforce through personal, workplace, and technical skills; as well as the Student Government Association. Students also participate in Leadership Empowerment and Development (LEAD) activities which promote leadership activities throughout the year. 

We also do things like have a capitol day where we take students to Austin to meet their legislators and that sort of thing. We have service projects across the curriculum in various disciplines. Every campus is a little bit different in the way they administer it and the way they pull it off, but the goal is to try to get students engaged, try to get them involved. We’ve had success doing that.

How is the school leveraging technology?

We’ve got a new enrollment system for our continuing education or non-credit programming that’s just gone online. We’ve also switched from Banner to Workday for our finance and human resources. And this year, we brought student services online. They’re going to have complete control and access to every aspect of their college career on their phone or their mobile device.  

What are the main challenges that you are identifying in terms of the broader educational sector? 

Years ago in Illinois, during a crisis in the early 1980s, they introduced through the Board of Higher Education an initiative called Priorities, Quality, and Productivity. The basic idea was to put their limited funding resources into areas where they could emphasize quality while taking a mindful approach to setting priorities. The reality is that, even though we live in a robust environment, prices across the board have gone up. We have to pay a living wage, and salaries are the largest part of our budget. There’s also student support to consider. Wouldn’t it be better to look at our enterprise and say, how can we do this better? As an example, we have a foundry program that we scaled back dramatically because it took a lot of resources, but not many people were interested in taking the course. We didn’t eliminate it, but we scaled it back.

It’s about having an honest approach of looking at what our priorities are and looking at what our productivity is, and frankly, being willing to do the hard work of saying goodbye to low-producing programs. We can always bring them back if there’s demand in the future. But if we want to focus and get the best quality, we need to focus our resources, putting our money where our mouth is. And that’s hard. It’s never easy to eliminate jobs or eliminate departments. At Collin, we’re doing that heavy lifting, hopefully with kindness and consideration, but out of a commitment to making sure that we’re offering the best selection of courses for our students. 

It comes back to the whole relevance point. That’s something that goes across higher education. Resources are always going to be a challenge because prices are always going to go up.