ROCKFORD, Ill. | Rock Valley College in Rockford has partnered with NIU to start an engineering program this semester that offers courses for students to earn a NIU bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering, technology, aerospace and manufacturing fields.

The purpose of this partnership is to offer students a study opportunity close to home that can meet the needs of Rockford’s manufacturing and innovation economy, according to the program’s website.

NIU’s enrollment had the biggest decline in the freshman class this fall, falling 5.5 percent, and officials hope this program will encourage students to spread a good word about NIU, said NIU President Doug Baker during a town hall meeting.

NIU has been recruiting at local community colleges in order to get its transfer student enrollment up, said Baker during a town hall meeting on Sept. 22. Rock Valley College reported a 100 student increase in their freshman class this semester because of interest in this program.

“Rockford is an aerospace manufacturing community, so there’s a lot of companies there, and they are short on engineers,” Baker said during the town hall meeting. “Those companies approached Rock Valley [College] and us, and the industry stepped up in about three and a half million dollars to help us get the engineering program going.”

Baker said at the University Council meeting on Wednesday that Rock Valley College has named NIU its preferred provider, and the community college will direct its students to NIU.

NIU administrators have worked on assigning three advisers to visit the Rock Valley College campus to interact with students and recruit them to DeKalb or the Rock Valley College engineering program, Baker said.

“This program was started to give more opportunity so our engineering industry can grow,” said Maria Salazar, administrative assistant at Rock Valley College, Aviation Career Education Center. “Location is key because it’s affordable and good driving distance, and I know we now have more students that come out of the district just to attend our technology building.”

Rock Valley College got a remodeled engineering building through Woodward, an engineering and innovation company which is in need of more employees, and now, the Rock Valley engineering building will provide them with that, Salazar said.

Freshman engineering major Noah Benson said he is from Rockford and would have gone through the program, but didn’t find out about it in time.

“I definitely would have gone to Rock Valley [College] and worked on my major through the program NIU offers there, because that’s such a good idea,” Benson said. “That might have worked out easier for me, so I hope other incoming engineering freshman know about it or other NIU students pass along the word to their family and friends.”