Harper's early enrollment exceeded expectations
Harper College's early enrollment surpassed everyone's expectations.
Even in its first decade, Harper College seemed to have more the look and feel of a large suburban university than a start-up community college.
The pent-up demand among district residents for college-level instruction surprised most from the start, with enrollment far exceeding expectations in early years. Opening-semester enrollment in fall 1967 came to more than 1,700 students, while officials had planned for about 1,000. That number more than doubled to 3,800 students by the following year.
The college's space limitations were acutely felt at the temporary campus at Elk Grove High School, and even the addition of classroom space at Forest View High School in Arlington Heights didn't relieve the pressure. Parking woes in particular intensified, with just 700 spaces available at Elk Grove for nearly 4,000 registered vehicles.
The early influx of students also put a strain on program capacity. In 1972, for example, Harper was forced to turn away hundreds of applicants in secretarial science, fashion design, child care, criminal justice and several health-related subjects.
By 1976, Harper's enrollment stood at nearly 15,000 students.
Willard Brown, a high school board member who served on the college steering committee for the 1965 referendum establishing Harper, remembered the modest expectations of community members in the planning stages.
"We were thinking of a much smaller school, a much smaller campus," Brown said in 1975. "Gradually, after the college started, we awakened to the fact that this was going to be much bigger than anybody had conceived."
Enrollment has largely stabilized in recent years, with Harper now serving more than 35,000 credit and noncredit students - or roughly the same student head count as a decade ago - through a variety of associate degree and certificate programs, advanced career programs, workforce training, continuing education classes and development education programs.