Community College enrollment plunges, this can't be good

[bjscheel]

Community college can be a great option! And some are better than others. My DD24 went to one in a thriving suburb, lived on campus in a suite with her own bathroom, and took just as many graphic design credits as a BA would offer, just less gen eds. She got a great hands on education, and between scholarships and the AOTC, no tuition out of our pockets. We don't live in an academically competitive area, but yet a couple of people looked down on her going there. She learned to stand tall and tell people why she was excited about her choice. I think her school's enrollment is holding pretty steady after a slight Covid decline.

 

[NotUrsula]

Here's the answer- Trade Schools are booming

https://apnews.com/article/community-college-trade-school-075d7e7e2b0dc659920a9be6d054c8b2

Depending on where you are, trade school often *is* community college, or part of it, at least.

A lot of what is offered in community colleges is straightforward job certification, and those programs tend to have very effective placement programs. Students are now more interested in certification programs than in degrees, because they are much more of a sure bet for the money if you're not planning on studying in a STEM discipline. In a worker's market, more and more companies are dropping the degree requirement in favor of asking for certifications, and when it's cheaper and faster to just get the certification it makes sense to do it. I'm actually rather in favor of that; I think this is a re-set that has been long coming, given the deflation of the actual value of a bachelor's degree over the past few decades. If you really don't need your employee to have a degree to do the work, don't ask for one.

The primary takeaway from going to school during the pandemic was that if I can just stay home and do the work remotely, what's the point in spending all of the extra money on physically being there? Unless you're attending the kind of college where the social connections you make are a huge part of the draw, there just isn't so much point to it anymore. (Which is why prestigious colleges are still turning away thousands of applicants, but regional schools are suffering.)

 

[mrodgers]

The cost of books has dropped dramatically with rental and online options, teen pregnancy has dropped, people are having children later, and nursing programs are so competitive to get into, usually a closed major because colleges just don’t have enough room for all that want to attend their programs. Some programs struggled due to Covid with online classes and lack of clinicals.

My girls currently in college, both have less cost renting books today than I had purchasing used books in 1990 in a community college. My oldest went to the same community college and is just now after a year going back to expand on the Associates. The youngest is away in a dorm at $50k/year private university and her book cost with rental are about the same as what mine were purchasing used.

For the record, I'm talking less than $300. I paid all of my tuition and books with a $4 minimum wage 20 hour/week job. My girls paid for their books with no job only because they said, "I already rented and got my books, you don't need to do that."

 

[mrodgers]

That’s why I put part time in quotes - you pay by the class, not by the semester…

Our community college you pay by the semester if you are going full time. It was $670 I think in 1990. Today it's $2500. My daughter had like 18 credits. My program was essentially a 4 year program compressed into 2 years and I think I had 39 credits. I also had required classes all summer for both summers. 9 credits in summer I think it was, it's been a while. 39 sounds high to me but I do remember people being shocked at how many credits I had for an Associates.

Our CC is fairly well known for it's Nursing, Metrology (me), and Parks and Rec programs.

 

[Colleen27]

We are starting to explore colleges. I want to encourage my ds to look at community colleges. It seems there is a stigma, does anyone know why? Everyone is pushing their kids to 4 year colleges it seems. When I mention CC most just kind of shrug and you can tell they think it's a bad idea. There are other options like CC, apprentice, take a year off to work and save money etc. Also, they can transfer into a 4 year school after CC.

There seems to be a general attitude that 4 year colleges are the only choice and the best choice. Does it really set kids up for better success if they attend a 4 year school? It is just so expensive and most kids I know that went to college are not even in a job that they went to school for.

I'll preface this with all the usual disclaimers... it depends on the kid, on the college, on the location, etc. But I do think there can be some downsides to community college that not everyone sees at first glance.

1) Community college classes have a reputation for being an extension of high school, in quality and in atmosphere, and in my experience that's deserved. The honors and AP classes offered in high schools were absolutely more challenging and academically rigorous than most of the community college courses I've taken (and I did a combined 3 years at two different CCs - one for my tech AS and trade certs, and another for the first 2 years of my bachelors). This has a couple of downsides. Kids who were bored/under-challenged in high school and who look forward to college as more of a stretch are just as under-challenged at CC, and having two years of those easy core classes can leave kids on a 2+2 path unprepared for the rigors of upper division university classes.

2) Community college isn't always the money-saver it is made out to be, especially for students who have the potential to earn decent-sized scholarships. It is cheaper than paying full price for four years of university, of course, but most CCs don't offer merit or athletic aid and most universities offer far less aid to transfer students than to incoming freshmen. So you could be saving money now at the cost of spending more later. To use a real-world example, one of DD's friends got a $12K/year aid offer from an in-state public uni with a cost of attendance around $24K/year. So her cost to go there, assuming graduating in 4 years, would be around $48K. Her parents wanted her to do her first two years at community college while living at home to save money, then transfer. But our CC is around $6K/year, and the university she wanted to attend only has a literal handful of scholarships for transfer students so there was a good chance she'd end up paying full price or close to it for years 3 and 4 if she went that route... and if it went that way, the 2+2 path would have cost them 60K in total. She ended up taking the scholarship, so I don't know how she'd have fared in chasing scholarships as a transfer student, but since the big picture contained a real chance the lesser experience would be more costly, they decided not to risk it.

But there are also plenty of more frivolous reasons people look down at community colleges, everything from them not looking as good on the high school's rating dashboard to pure snobbishness to the notion that dorm living prepares kids to transition to independence better than commuting to school, so it is really important for each family to look at the specific situation their kid is in rather than going with the prevailing "wisdom" from either perspective.

 

[kdonnel]

I can't help but wonder how much the costs of books are impacting attendance. I was a poor kid in CUNY and the costs of books were a huge undertaking.

Books have been a non issue for my two college kids. Most semesters were $0. An expensive semester is around $100.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Here's the answer- Trade Schools are booming

https://apnews.com/article/community-college-trade-school-075d7e7e2b0dc659920a9be6d054c8b2

I love the trades, services is the safest bet & a solid foundation for the economy. Skilled services are especially useful but all are important. Services can't be moved from the consumer's location so it builds up the middle of the country and the consumer is very hands on in the fact they can personally select, or deselect, a provider, unlike products nowadays where we have no idea. Plus, services have always been a sector to siphon off excess in the system, as in if you have extra you pay someone to mow the lawn or shovel snow, babysit, landscape, walk your dog etc. Big fan

Books have been a non issue for my two college kids. Most semesters were $0. An expensive semester is around $100.

How is this possible? Where are you? Not a single one of either of my kids classes were that inexpensive.

 

[Minnesota!]

We are starting to explore colleges. I want to encourage my ds to look at community colleges. It seems there is a stigma, does anyone know why? Everyone is pushing their kids to 4 year colleges it seems. When I mention CC most just kind of shrug and you can tell they think it's a bad idea. There are other options like CC, apprentice, take a year off to work and save money etc. Also, they can transfer into a 4 year school after CC.

There seems to be a general attitude that 4 year colleges are the only choice and the best choice. Does it really set kids up for better success if they attend a 4 year school? It is just so expensive and most kids I know that went to college are not even in a job that they went to school for.

I went to a 4 year and then a 2 year for a different path.

I will only push my kids towards a 2 year, due to this. Same classes, same caliber of professors, same experience living on campus, a quarter of the cost.

Books have been a non issue for my two college kids. Most semesters were $0. An expensive semester is around $100.

Same. My oldest spent exactly $0 for his freshman year books. Everything was on his handy dandy laptop for free.

 

[daisy2013]

In my district where I am on the BOE there is a huge increase in interest in Vo-Tech options in high school and beyond. A lot of kids that may have gone to CC may now go that route. My husband started at CC because he could not afford a four-year school. He ended up transferring with $$$ and graduating with an engineering degree and has never looked back. It’s not the path for everyone but is a good option for some

 

[MillauFr]

Books have been a non issue for my two college kids. Most semesters were $0. An expensive semester is around $100.

I was walking by the University of Washington Bookstore the other day and thinking do they even sell hard copy college textbooks in 2023? Aren't most of them just on some phone app?

 

[kdonnel]

How is this possible? Where are you? Not a single one of either of my kids classes were that inexpensive.

One kid was at Kennesaw State the other is at The University of Georgia.

In some cases the professor provided a PDF copy of the book, in other cases they used publicly available materials.

One professor was mad at his publisher and just gave everyone hard copies of the book.

When my daughter started I looked into textbook rental services and more or less forced her to use it. After the first year she told me I was actually spending more with the rentals than her friends. Turns out books don’t work at all like they did when I was in college.

 

[VandVsmama]

We are starting to explore colleges. I want to encourage my ds to look at community colleges. It seems there is a stigma, does anyone know why? Everyone is pushing their kids to 4 year colleges it seems. When I mention CC most just kind of shrug and you can tell they think it's a bad idea. There are other options like CC, apprentice, take a year off to work and save money etc. Also, they can transfer into a 4 year school after CC.

There seems to be a general attitude that 4 year colleges are the only choice and the best choice. Does it really set kids up for better success if they attend a 4 year school? It is just so expensive and most kids I know that went to college are not even in a job that they went to school for.

There's a lot of elitist attitudes and snobbery in "My kid's going to college"-land. Some of the stigma/attitudes I've heard in parent circles in our neck of the woods include things like:

• If it's not a top 25/top 50/top 100 college on the US News & World Report list, then it's a lousy school and I'm not letting my kid go there.
• My kid's entire adult success in life will be based on my kid getting into a well-known college.
• If it's a big name private school, then it must provide a better education than Cheaper Univ.
• Only drop outs/losers/slackers go to community college.
• If you go to community college, then you must be stupid/dumb/can't hack it in the real world.
• If you start at community college, you won't be able to get a high paying job after graduation at the 4-yr college.
• If I haven't heard of the college, then that means it must be _insert_favorite_word_for_poo_.

Probably in big investment banking jobs on Wall Street, it matters where you graduated from college (4 yr institution). But for pretty much everything else, employers really only pay attention to where you graduated when you're applying for your 1st job right out of college. After that, employers only care that you HAVE a degree, not where you got it from.

Community college is an excellent way to start out on a 4-yr degree for a number of reasons:

• tuition is cheaper
• a lot of students live at home while attending, so none of the $10-$14k/yr for room & board in a dorm.
• class sizes are way smaller (think in the range of 30 students/class instead of 300-800). Some of the lower division computer science classes at UC Berkeley have >1000 students in ONE CLASS.
• class options during day and evening. Helpful if you need to take PM classes because of a job during the day
• easy to attend part time, but you can attend full time.
• many have specific transfer agreements with the state's "in-state" 4-year universities. This means that if you take classes on the guaranteed transfer list, then when you transfer to In State Univ, those classes definitely will be credited toward your general ed requirements. Thus, saving you $$ from having to retake something.
• when you graduate from the 4-yr university/college, the community college name doesn't show up on your diploma...it's the 4-yr school name that shows up. Nobody gives a rip that you started at your local CC.

Community college is also a great option to consider for people who are looking for something other than a BA/BS degree...for example, you could pursue:

• a 2-yr nursing degree
• 2-yr degree in aircraft maintenance
• 1-2 yr degree/certificate programs in IT-related topics
• take classes to become licensed in early childhood education
• EMT certification training
• X-ray/radiology/ultrasound technician

Every family has to figure out what works best for them. We are in the midst of shopping for colleges for ODD, who's a high school junior. DH & I have identified how much we can afford to pay per year for tuition, room & board, and that's been a primary driver of which schools we've been looking at. ODD's GPA and test scores also play an important role in determining what schools are on the possibility list.

A couple of the colleges that's on "the list" are schools which a lot of parents clucking in the background look down their nose at. Some other schools on "the list" are ones which people we know haven't ever heard of. I don't really give a flying fart about any of their opinions, though. I only care about MY kid, not their uninformed opinions.

 

[mom2rtk]

The cost of books has dropped dramatically with rental and online options,

This has definitely been the case with my kids. Oldest graduated college 8 years ago, youngest graduates in a few weeks. Textbook costs have definitely trended down (thank heaven!) as other resources have grown in availability.

 

[mom2rtk]

Isn't K-12 enrollment down a decent amount since Covid hit? I think a lot of kids have fallen through the cracks. Maybe that's impacting CC enrollment.

 

[Magical2017]

I work at a university. We did see a decline in enrollment for a year or so but our numbers are increasing. I am actually surprised that there is not an increase in community college enrollment due to the high cost of tuition at four year colleges. I would expect an increase in the number of people who will attend trade schools or other training programs, as well.

Before our last Governor left office, he started a workforce development program. Four year degrees are no longer required for thousands of state jobs that previously required one. I think this is wonderful. Not everyone wishes to attend a four year college and now more people have options for different career paths.

As far as textbooks, we are adopting a newer edition for the course I teach. I reviewed it and like it even better than our current textbook. It's also 25 percent less than the one we use now. Win-win. About half of my students rent their books and the rest purchase theirs through the bookstore or an online seller. Our library has a few to loan out but only for short periods at a time.

 

[soccerdad72]

In 4 years of school so far (1 more to go), I don’t think my son has spent more than $100 on books. Nearly everything he has needed has been available (legal and otherwise) online in PDF form. He did need to pay for a subscription to one service one semester, but that was for homework and tests, not textbooks.

 

[LuvOrlando]

So what I am to understand is that the schools who pick very expensive books are not doing it because they have to do so. In fact, they are deliberately fleecing their students and their families because if some don't they are opting in.
Guess who will NOT be getting any donations anytime soon :/

 

[hopemax]

So I did a radical thing... I clicked from the article to the research center the article pulled the stats from.

The oldest report is from 2012, and only covers 3 years going back to 2010. I was hoping that they would have older reports because, my first thought was 2010 was pretty close to the Great Recession, so I was wondering if enrollment in 2010 was at a high and some of the decline was simply reversion to the mean. I couldn't answer that directly, but I could see that in 2010 4-year for profit colleges had a whopping 14.8% increase. And if you looked at age stats, the "over 24" category saw an increase at 4-year for profit colleges of 16.9% (7.1 percent for younger, traditional students). Meanwhile Public 2-year enrollment only increased by 1.8% among the "over 24" cohort.

So my suspicion is that employers were sending a strong message during the Great Recession, that they wanted 4-year graduates, and combined with poor job prospects that's what people did. Traditional public, and non-profit 4-year schools, there isn't that much change, only 1% point or less in most years. I suspect it's because they can't scale up and down their enrollment due to labor conditions, they are always maxed out with qualified applicants. So the growth in 2010, and I suspect a few years before went into the 4-year for profits, and then came back out again as labor conditions improved, and the for-profit schools were hit with scandals over predatory practices. So I wonder if Community Colleges suffered because people, specifically employers, equated them more with the scandal ridden for-profit schools like University of Phoenix and ITT Tech than their 4-year state school or vocational programs. If CC graduates could tell their friends and family how their education lead to job success, I'd expect the rates to climb naturally. I suspect CC graduates and non-graduates are actually sharing stories about how they didn't get good job prospects until they got their 4-year degree, or job experience, etc. Even things like online resumes, where employers can set search parameters, without a real person reviewing the data could be sending messages to folks that CCs aren't going to get you where you want to be. And then people are adjusting accordingly.

And then there was Covid.

 

[NotUrsula]

So what I am to understand is that the schools who pick very expensive books are not doing it because they have to do so. In fact, they are deliberately fleecing their students and their families because if some don't they are opting in.
Guess who will NOT be getting any donations anytime soon :/

No. Colleges do not pick class textbooks, the instructor does. *Sometimes* when an instructor insists on the very newest version of a very expensive textbook, there may be self-interest at work if the instructor wrote or edited part of it, but it depends a lot on the field. STEM fields require teaching the latest techniques, and you won't find those in old books, so unless some scientist has recently taken the time to write a free one, it's likely going to cost you.

Humanities and social sciences disciplines often still use paper books, or offer a choice of paper or ebook. Which makes sense, because Wuthering Heights, or Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is pretty much the same whether your copy is 20 years old or 20 days old.

However ... there is a movement in US higher ed (that has been spearheaded by librarians, actually) that is encouraging the use of open-source instructional materials in higher ed wherever possible. Sometimes that's a free virtual textbook written by the department or the instructor, and sometimes it's something created as a non-profit project by some scholarly group somewhere in the world. If your school doesn't encourage them, it should. (Schools, often through the Library's purchasing power, may also buy a multi-seat license to online textbook versions, and provide them at no extra charge to students as part of their tuition costs.)

If your student is in a discipline that requires new books to keep up with new technology & practices, and your college does not embrace the concept of open-source instructional materials, brace yourself for the concept of the dreaded Access Code. The Code is actually a single-use limited-time seat license to access the supporting data and exercises that go with a commercially published textbook, whether you buy a paper copy or not. So, in many cases you can spend more buying a used book, because the code is only good for a finite period of time once activated. It usually comes with a new book at no extra charge, but constitutes an extra fee that must be paid if you purchased the book from someone other than the publisher. (DS attends a private high school, and we usually do not get books provided by the school. This year her high-school textbooks were $400, mostly used, but her social studies book, a new edition with a code, was almost $300 by itself.)

 

[mousefan73]

One kid was at Kennesaw State the other is at The University of Georgia.

In some cases the professor provided a PDF copy of the book, in other cases they used publicly available materials.

One professor was mad at his publisher and just gave everyone hard copies of the book.

When my daughter started I looked into textbook rental services and more or less forced her to use it. After the first year she told me I was actually spending more with the rentals than her friends. Turns out books don’t work at all like they did when I was in college.

I was in college in the early to mid 90s.. Each semester I was looking at 300-400 USED!!