WELLS — A few finishing touches are needed, but the newest addition to the York County Community College campus will be ready for the onslaught of students when the new semester begins Sept. 5.

The Pratt & Whitney Building, so named because of the generous donation from aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, is only the second building on the community college’s Wells campus. It contains eight classrooms, the Hannaford Lecture Hall, which seats 143, a small conference room and the Sam L. Cohen Mathematics lab, which was largely funded by a grant from the Sam L. Cohen Foundation in South Portland.

The college, originally called York County Technical college through June 2003, was established by the Maine Legislature in 1994, according to the college’s website.. Classes began in September 1995. The school erected its first, and up to now, only structure in 1997. However in recent years, administers noted that the existing 77,000-square-foot structure wasn’t big enough as student enrollment has continued to grow.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual Almanac of Higher Education 2017-18, between the years of 2005 and 2015, YCCC was one of the 20th fastest growing public associate and baccalaureate/associate institutions.

During the 10 year period the almanac based its ranking on, YCCC’s enrollment  increased 101.1 percent, from a student count of 874 in 2005 to 1,758 in 2015.

Growth continued in 2016 with a 4 percent increase, according to YCCC President Barbara Finkelstein. “We broke 1,800,” she said in a recent telephone interview— last year’s enrollment was 1,826 — “that’s an all-time high.”

She said she doesn’t think there will be much if any increase in student enrollment this year. “I would suspect we’re not going up this year because the economy is so good,” said Finkelstein. “People are staying in the workplace.”

But when enrolllment does grow, YCCC will be ready.

With the new, 18,000-square-foot building, “we could easily grow to about 2,500” in student enrollment, Finkelstein said.

And with the continual addition of new offerings — like a gerontology and hospitality program that began last year, and an American Studies program starting this fall — as well as the lower cost, more are looking to community colleges as a way to get a quality, affordable education. Some are satisfied with a certificate program or associate degree that YCCC offers; an increasing number use the lower cost school — which  charges $92 per credit hour — to begin a four-year bachelor’s degree program. Course credits acquired through the Maine Community College system are easily transferable to University of Maine colleges.

To finance the new addition, the college started a capital campaign last year to raise $4.2 million, half the projected cost of construction. Nearly $3 million was raised by the Foundation for Maine Community colleges, said Finkelstein, which is able to go for large grants. More than $1 million was raised by the YCCC Foundation, from local donors and businesses.

“We had tremendous support from the community,” she said.

In addition, a large portion of the total $8.4 million price tag — $3.6 million — came from a state bond; the remainder was made up through college reserve funds and a loan.

— Associate Editor Dina Mendros can be reached at 282-1535, ext. 324, or [email protected].