Nursing and Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM) continue to be the top college degree courses that incoming college students prefer to take this school year, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said.

CHED chairman Emmanuel Angeles said young people would continue choosing Bachelor of Science (BS) in Nursing and Hotel and Restaurant Management courses despite reports of dwindling demand for nurses in developed countries.

“Nursing will still be the top in-demand course,” Angeles said.

While they have not yet gathered a final tally of the enrollment in college degree programs due to the ongoing enrolment in many colleges and universities, Angeles said that initial figures had not shown any major shift in the preferred courses of students.

CHED identified Nursing, HRM, Information Technology (IT), Elementary Education, and Computer Science as college degree courses with the highest number of enrollees.

As of academic year 2008 to 2009, Nursing had 422,978 enrolled students; HRM had 123,523; IT, 115,605; Elementary Education, 95,725; and Computer Science, 95,134.

Popular courses also include Criminology, Accountancy, Management, Secondary Education and English Education. Rainier Allan Ronda