WAMC: Enrollment Soars at Community Colleges (2009-07-05)

WAMC New York News

Enrollment Soars at Community Colleges

By KPLU Education reporter Gary Davis (2009-07-05)

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A busy Student Commons at Lower Columbia College in Longview. Photo courtesy LCC via Flickr.

SEATTLE, WA (KPLU) - Enrollment has surged at Washington's community and technical colleges, and summer courses are packed. Preliminary estimates show the percentage of student populations jumping between 7% and 81% from last summer.

At Lower Columbia College, staff shake their heads in disbelief. The Longview school has had the most extreme growth in students numbers, with an 81% increase. LCC spokeswoman Sue Groth says the spike is due to the recession and high unemployment in parts of southwest Washington. "A lot of the people coming to take classes are real focused on getting in, finishing the one or two year program to get the skills so they can get out and get a new job."

Most of the state's community colleges report increases of between 10% and 50%, including the Seattle Community College district, Edmonds and Tacoma community colleges. "You know, people aren't screwing around right now," says Charlie Earl, who directs the state's Community and Technical Colleges Board. "They're looking to improve their own financial condition and they're going back to school."

Earl says he's not surprised to see higher enrollments this summer. He says that's normal during a slumping economy. What surprises him is the scope of the demand. "We are up across the board. We're up in basic skills instruction, all academic programs for undergraduate education for transfer to the universities, as well as our professional technical programs." He says online courses are also popular, mushrooming 20 percent each the past three academic quarters, another trend he expects will continue.

While the poor economy fuels the enrollment surge it's also responsible for a painful 10% cut in the state budget for two-year colleges. That's meant the loss of teacher and staff jobs, and resulted in larger class sizes for the most popular programs. Earl says if the recession doesn't bottom out soon, it could mean the elimination of some classes in specialized areas this fall, despite higher enrollment trends. Gary Davis, KPLU News, Seattle.

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