California Community Colleges Are Getting Millions to Boost Enrollment. Is It Working?

After community college enrollment collapsed in late 2020, California lawmakers last year gave the system of public two-year colleges $120 million to help stem the tide of departing students and bring them back.

So far, progress has been uneven. Through last fall, just 17 of California’s 116 community colleges have seen the number of students they enroll grow since the fall of 2020. At 42 colleges, more students left in the fall of 2021 than in the fall of 2020, according to a CalMatters analysis of system enrollment data.

Officials acknowledge that the number of students attending continued to sag systemwide. “Fall 2021 headcount is down approximately 7% from fall 2020 and down 20% overall compared to fall 2019,” a cratering of more than 300,000 students over those two years, said a March memo from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

While $120 million may be a rounding error in the state’s $47 billion commitment to higher education for the current budget year, it’s still a large chunk of change.

Gov. Gavin Newsom now wants to send another $150 million to community colleges to further bolster their reenrollment efforts.

The expected return on investment is unclear.

While colleges received $20 million to stimulate reenrollment in March of last year — well before fall term began — the remaining $100 million only reached colleges in the middle of September at the earliest, several weeks after nearly all colleges started their fall semesters. While most state higher education financial support is annual, this money was one-time.

That means the bulk of the money’s impact can’t be measured yet. The full package’s effect on student enrollment for the spring is also unknown because colleges don’t report their student population numbers until around July.

Nor will the public ever truly know how colleges spend this money: Lawmakers and the governor last year didn’t include any reporting requirements for colleges to show how they are using the reenrollment dollars.

The chancellor’s office of the community colleges supports Newsom’s plan for reenrollment money but in its budget request last year sought $20 million in annual support, not $150 million one-time.

Enrollment big picture

Early signs suggest the $120 million for reenrollment has made a difference in stabilizing campus student populations, but other factors also are responsible for bringing more students back or keeping them from leaving. Offering more courses in person played a role, several college administrators said, as did billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief aid for students and colleges.

Much of the enrollment loss is outside the control of colleges. The labor market is sizzling now, with rampant labor shortages leading employers to pay well above minimum wage for positions that typically don’t require a college education. Historically, community college enrollment swells during economic downturns when employers are more selective, prizing applicants with college degrees. But enrollment dips when the economy is hot because adults don’t view education as an immediate ticket toward gainful employment.

The whole California community college system isn’t likely to return to its fall 2019 enrollment levels until two or three years from now, said John Hetts, a visiting executive for the chancellor’s office who oversees enrollment.

Colleges will have to work harder to keep their student populations steady. The public K-12 system is projected to shrink by nearly 600,000 students in eight years. California’s overall population has been either stagnant or in slight decline. Enrollment growth will have to come from more adults who aren’t recent high school graduates — including the roughly 3 million 25- to 54-year-olds who already have some college but no degree — and from college efforts to retain a greater share of their existing students, Hetts said.

Declining enrollment leads to proposed layoffs

City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is no stranger to declining enrollment. The college has suffered a downward trend in its student body beginning in 2012, when a years-long battle over its accreditation began. In 2014, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) voted to revoke CCSF's accreditation, saying the college was lacking in many areas, including “standards for instructional programs, student support services, library and learning support services and facilities.”

CCSF appealed the decision, and ultimately retained its accreditation in 2017, but the battle hurt the reputation of CCSF and, in turn, its enrollment.

Helping to fuel the enrollment uptick? More in-person classes, Murillo said. In fall 2021, about 70% of classes were online compared to around 88% in fall 2020. Pre-pandemic, about 17% of the college’s classes were online.

The lost students were “the students that really do well in in-person classes and were struggling in the online program,” said Murillo. The college’s push for more in-person classes included a focus on noncredit courses, such as English language courses, Murillo said. Students in those courses are less likely to be able to take classes online, either because of insufficient internet and computer access or language barriers.

State reenrollment funds are helping to boost spring enrollment, Murillo said. The college used some of the money for a reenrollment event in December that brought back 150 students for spring. Students appreciate that 50% of the college’s courses will be in person, Murillo said. The college also is using part of the state funds to dole out $500 to select students to cover books and other school supplies.

Isolated idyll, a rural college perspective

College of the Siskiyous, the state’s northernmost community college located an hour from the Oregon border, also saw a modest rebound in the number of students attending last fall. Among students in credit-bearing classes, enrollment increased from around 1,300 to 1,400, a campus administrator said. That’s still below the 1,800 enrolled in credit-bearing courses in fall 2019.

The college has so far used about $36,000 of its reenrollment money to print schedules and mail them out to its service area — roughly the size of Rhode Island. Administrators figured sending out physical copies of the course schedule would reach potential students in the rural north who either lacked reliable internet or were unaccustomed to online content. “That could have contributed to some of our enrollment growth,” said Char Perlas, interim superintendent/president of the college.