James March-April 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 82
idents are from other states and 10 percent are international. They go to work
all over the place, but the biggest hub is
Atlanta and Georgia. Interestingly, even
those who go to work in Silicon Valley
or in New York City or Seattle, are of
great value because these are people
with personal ties to Atlanta. For example, the chief financial officer of Cisco
is a Georgia Tech graduate, and Cisco
just opened an office across from our
campus. I’m sure they went through all
the analysis and then decided that this
was the right place. It’s hard not to see
and that’s not a coincidence. Another
example is Google that just built a big
tower on 12th Street. When Google or
Microsoft decide they want a stronger
east coast presence, their choice is a
very natural one to be here.
PK A lot of colleges are seeing declines
but aren’t you seeing both increases in
applications and enrollment?
AC Yes, we are. It’s a little crazy because— you’re right— during this
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last decade most universities in the
country, not just in the state, have
been declining. During the last decade, though, Georgia Tech became
the fastest growing university in the
nation. And we now are the largest in
the state of Georgia in enrollment.
Our applications continue to go
up year after year, so we’ve been
blessed with high demand. We’re obviously, as mentioned earlier, trying to
make room for more students because
we cannot accommodate everybody
and that has made us very selective—
and that attracts the very best, most
talented students. That’s a great asset
for the state.
PK You have a College of Lifetime
Learning to expand your work. Can
you explain to readers what that is?
AC Yes. The reason why we are the
largest university in Georgia is a data
point that surprises many people. It
includes three very large online programs that we started 11 years ago:
The Master of Science in Computer
Science (launched in 2014), Master
of Science in Analytics (launched
in 2017), and Master of Science in
Cybersecurity (launched in 2018).
Georgia Tech’s unique integration of
technology, business models and policy set it apart. Our approach to creating educated citizens throughout their
lifetime is also a differentiating factor.
The College of Lifetime Learning will
leverage Georgia Tech’s strengths in
engineering, computing and innovation to create a leading institution in
lifetime learning.
If technology allows us to serve
more people, we should. At the time
it was a bit controversial, and people
worried that if we served so many
students it was going to hurt the
brand of Georgia Tech. Fast forward
11 years, and all these programs now
account for over 20,000 students.
They’re the largest master’s programs
of any kind in the world and they
keep growing. The biggest one is the
online master’s in computer science.
