6000 students. It merged with the Union County Technical Institute in Scotch Plains, and it once again became a public college with the official name of Union County College. The college's structure was established by state statute on August 17, 1982. Between its founding in 1933 and 2007, it taught 1,100,000 students, with large numbers of them advancing to four-year colleges and universities, and it has graduated more than 25,000 students as well. The merger was presided over by college alumnus Dr. Saul Orkin, who had been president since 1974; Dr. Orkin died the following year of a heart attack at age sixty. In 1992, there were 4,000 full and part-time students in Elizabeth, and 6,500 students in Cranford and Plainfield. One report in the New York Times in 1997 noted that graduates from New Jersey schools often had relatively high default rates—high relative to other states and to the national average—nevertheless graduates of Union County college had a lower default rate (9%) than the national average of 10%. In comparison, three New Jersey schools had average default rates greater than 25% and were in danger of losing funding as a result. In the latter years of the first decade of the twenty-first century, an economic downturn caused admissions to swell, as students unable to afford pricier colleges descended on cost-effective alternatives such as community colleges; enrollment at Union County College was up 17% in 2010. And many students and families found that community colleges such as Union County college were attractive educational values. Student life Since there are no dormitories, all students are commuters, unlike students who live in dormitories on campus. With the economic downturn of 2007–2010, students from wealthier towns who might normally go to "brand-name" colleges were attending Union County College, according to enrollment manager David Sheridan, who noted that community colleges have seen "big increases in enrollment" but found that many classes were "filled to capacity." The school works with students of varying capacities. For example, it accepted one student who had had learning issues in high school, and had a 1.9 grade point average, but with work and effort, and enrolling in extra courses during summers, he graduated with honors in biology in 2010 and has been accepted to Cornell University. Academic honor societies Honor societies include Phi Theta Kappa Iota Xi, Psi Beta, Mu Alpha Theta, Chi Alpha Epsilon Psi Chapter, Lambda Epsilon