COA top choice for post-secondary ed in area, study says

COA is the top choice among students seeking a post-secondary education in the college’s seven-county service area, says Nathan Dollar.

“College of The Albemarle is unequivocally the primary post-secondary access point for students in all of the counties,” said Dollar, who is director of the data collection and interpretation nonprofit Carolina Demography.

Dollar was addressing several members of the COA faculty and the college’s Board of Trustees during a presentation titled “Building Tomorrow Together: COA Data Showcase and Strategic Input” on Thursday.

Dollar’s report focused mainly on education attainment in the three counties — Camden, Pasquotank and Perquimans — that encompass the central portion of COA’s service area. The other four counties served by COA are Dare, Chowan, Currituck and Gates.

COA officials can use the data to help boost student enrollment, including adult learners 25 years and older, and to provide more specific educational needs and job-training opportunities by better understanding trends in the region’s population, labor market and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

For example, Dollar pointed out the average highest level of education achieved by adults 25 years and older in Pasquotank, Camden and Perquimans.

“You can see that the bulk of the population either has a high school diploma or some college and no degree,” he said. “Nearly half of the population 25 and older in Camden and Pasquotank have either high school or some college, no degree, and for nearly 60% of adults 25 and older in Perquimans County the highest level of education is either high school or have gone to some college but never finished.”

That is important because as the state’s population continues to age there are fewer younger people entering the post-secondary education pipeline, according to Dollar.

“So, colleges across the state, College of The Albemarle included, are retooling to do outreach for the adult population,” he said.

That 25-plus population includes retirees, so Dollar’s report zoomed in on the “prime working age” range of 25 to 44.

Almost a third of Camden County’s 25-plus population with some college, no degree, ranks within the prime range, Dollar said.

“Similarly, 40% of that 25-plus in Pasquotank County with some college, no degree are in that prime working age, or that 25 to 44 age group,” he said.

There are fewer adults aged 25 to 44 in Perquimans County who have some college but no degree, but Perquimans also has fewer adults than Camden or Pasquotank, according to Dollar.

Dollar also discussed another demographic known as “opportunity youth.”

These are young people ages 16-24 who are not in school and also are not working.

“Other places have called them disconnected or disaffected but in North Carolina we tend to refer to them as opportunity youth because they are a prime population that we can bring into the fold,” Dollar said.

There are several “wonderful” efforts across the state to engage with these adolescents, he said.

At the state level, 12.1% of the population fits the opportunity youth demographic profile.

In Perquimans County, the percentage is 10.3, or 115 opportunity students, Dollar said. In Pasquotank County that percentage is 10.7, or 513 potential students and in Camden County, there are 106 opportunity students, or 10.3% of the county’s population.

Dollar’s report was compiled by analyzing data from the N.C. Community College System, the 2020 U.S. Census and other publicly available records.