Pamela Zemaya has worked in law firms for 26 years, but to put her daughter and son through college, she had to take on two more jobs.
The foundering economy has hit many hard, but the paralegal has a plan. She is in her third semester taking night classes at Towson University, studying for her pre-law degree with plans to go on to law school, become a lawyer and greatly increase her salary.
“It’s tough, though, when you’re in your 40s and trying to go back to school,” said Zemaya, 43. “But it’s not uncommon, with the increase in older people going back.”
The sputtering economy and swelling unemployment rate are sending many workers like Zemaya back to school to try to better equip themselves to compete in a stiff job market.
Nearly 4,000 more students have enrolled this fall at the University System of Maryland’s 11 institutions, bringing total enrollment to about 141,500 — with more than half of the increase coming at schools in the Baltimore area, said Ben Passmore, the system’s director of policy research and analysis.
Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate has increased to 6.1 percent, the highest in five years, and Maryland’s has jumped 1.1 percentage points since April, reaching 4.5 percent.
Passmore described the increase in students as “significant,” but said strain on the system’s infrastructure has been minimal because it was prepared for the enrollment surge.
“One of the things that people often do when the economy turns down is go back to school,” Passmore said.
“We’re growing mostly in places we said we were going to grow, so they were able to kind of use foresight and hire people and make sure they have the balance we hope to have.”
Towson University’s enrollment has increased 7 percent since last year, to 21,111, registrar Bob Giordani said. Towson has a goal of reaching 25,000 students by 2012. It has planned about a year ahead to hire new, full-time faculty members, and it created a trimester to spread more classes into the summer. The school also is opening a new building with 23 classrooms next fall as part of its fine arts center renovation.
The state has provided funding for the school to expand, designating it a growth campus, but because of the falling economy, Gov. Martin O’Malley is to announce budget cuts this week. System officials have said they are not expecting a reversal on the third consecutive tuition freeze.
