CCs

[jimbogumbo]

All: the California Community College enrollment plummeted this year, most likely the result of being completely online. How has it been at your CCs, and how much f2f did you offer vs online?

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/15/california-community-college-fall-enrollment-plunges

[ciao_yall]

At mine, not well. We went 100% online for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 with the exception of a few lab classes.

Enrollment declined across the board.

Our Noncredit programs (ESL, GED, etc) pretty much disappeared because these students are the least likely to be able to attend online.

In Credit, our equity populations all declined. Withdrawals in Credit jumped a lot (from around 10% to 20%), though the grade distribution showed a few more A's than in the past. Dedicated students remained dedicated students while those with any barrier seemed to have disappeared.

Our college, for some reason, is dragging its feet to go back into the classroom in Fall 2021.

[Diogenes]

Massive drop at mine. Like -19%

Our students are:
A. the "essential workers" that were either laid off or had to start working crazy hours.
B. parents who had to start homeschooling
C. Higher risk of COVID complications due to marginalization and systemic barriers
D. people not feeling the online, especially in hands on trade degrees

Can only hope in bounces back after this.

[jerseyjay]

My full-time job is at an open admissions state university (where enrollment has dropped slightly), but I have taught part-time for a community college in another state for more than decade. According to the emails from the administration, enrollment is down significantly--between 20 and 25 per cent.

I do not think the school is entirely online since some vocational and health classes are still in person, but most classes are online.  Since my classes are always online, I have not been paying that much attention to the plans, but it is not clear to me what the general plan is for next semester.

[Larimar]

OnlyGameInTown CC also had a massive drop, though I don't know percentages. Some pretty massive retrenchments are being implemented. I hope the place isn't circling the drain.

[downer]

I don't know the numbers at all for my CC or other nearby ones. I haven't seen any info.

Since they are run by the state, doesn't the state have some obligation to report the info?

My dept chair definitely isn't giving out info.

[onehappyunicorn]

We are down but nowhere near the drops seen at the four year state institutions. Our department is actually about 3 percent in overall attendance up from last spring. We have very few sections in-person this semester, over 95% of our program is online only.

[Mobius]

Local CC is down slightly compared to us. We were in trouble before the pandemic.

[Vkw10]

I don't know the numbers at all for my CC or other nearby ones. I haven't seen any info.

Since they are run by the state, doesn't the state have some obligation to report the info?

My dept chair definitely isn't giving out info.

Does the state have a higher education coordinating board? In Texas, that's the agency that collects and reports enrollment statistics. In some states, the department of education monitors colleges and reports statistics.

[kiana]

Enrollment is slightly down and the reason it's not down worse is the high school dual enrollment program.

[jimbogumbo]

I cannot deny nor confirm that I was in a recent budget meeting. After several years of enrollment drops we were down 10%+ this year, and look to be down a similaR amount in projections for next year.

[lightning]

OnlyGameInTown CC also had a massive drop, though I don't know percentages. Some pretty massive retrenchments are being implemented. I hope the place isn't circling the drain.

Does an accredited non-profit state-supported CC really close, especially when it's the only institution of higher ed in a region? I can see a struggling CC transforming itself into a shell of itself, in order to keep from closing, but I can't imagine a state allowing one to close down completely and deprive its region of a CC.

Sorry if this is a naive question.

[Larimar]

OnlyGameInTown CC also had a massive drop, though I don't know percentages. Some pretty massive retrenchments are being implemented. I hope the place isn't circling the drain.

Does an accredited non-profit state-supported CC really close, especially when it's the only institution of higher ed in a region? I can see a struggling CC transforming itself into a shell of itself, in order to keep from closing, but I can't imagine a state allowing one to close down completely and deprive its region of a CC.

Sorry if this is a naive question.

Actually I think you make a good point. I don't know the answer to the question.

[Aster]

This is a complicated situation. Many CC's work as both 2-year transfer institutions, AND as standalone technical colleges.

For the technical college side of operations, many of those programs operate as vocational, hands-on, training and/or licensing classes. It might be very difficult or even impossible to offer those types of classes in a remote/online format. So if your CC has a lot of those programs, yeah your enrollments took a big hit there. If your CC doesn't have a lot of those programs, then your enrollment patterns will be a lot less affected by COVID.

A lot of journalists who are tracking CC enrollments during COVID have failed to take the multi-mission roles of CC's into account, mistakenly viewing them more like 4-year universities rather than as the very different-modeled institutions that they are. They are not parsing out the vo-tech programs apart from the for-credit transfer programs. This lazy man's analysis of CC's has led to some very misguided interpretations of what CC's are doing "wrong" during COVID. In many cases, there isn't anything wrong at all. Once that people can attend vo-tech classes again, they will.

[polly_mer]

OnlyGameInTown CC also had a massive drop, though I don't know percentages. Some pretty massive retrenchments are being implemented. I hope the place isn't circling the drain.

Does an accredited non-profit state-supported CC really close, especially when it's the only institution of higher ed in a region? I can see a struggling CC transforming itself into a shell of itself, in order to keep from closing, but I can't imagine a state allowing one to close down completely and deprive its region of a CC.

Sorry if this is a naive question.

Actually I think you make a good point. I don't know the answer to the question.

Flat out closing a public CC used to be rare because it would deprive a region of education.

However, having a centralized online transfer institution that articulates with the state four-year system is becoming more prevalent to serve more remote regions.

If there's not actually thriving technical programs that are mostly supported by regional employers, running technical programs is too expensive.  Those programs will then be consolidated to the regions where the employers are and support the programs.

The writing is on the wall for CCs that can be consolidated into the online transfer system or with underenrolled, expensive technical education.  One reason some CCs now have dorms is people from the hinterlands coming for a year or two for the excellent technical program.