Amid enrollment drop, community colleges try to retain and help students
Across the country, public two-year colleges experienced the largest decline in enrollment in the fall 2020 semester compared to all other higher education institutions.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse, the decline topped 10% — the largest decrease in enrollment at community colleges in the past five years.
Community colleges are often seen as
an affordable place for workers to pick up new skills during a recession, and the widely shared sentiment was that enrollment would likely increase due to the coronavirus pandemic. But with the populations they primarily serve tending to work in the industries hardest hit by pandemic-related closures, these colleges have seen the opposite — and they’re doing what they can to retain and attract students.
At Mount Wachusett Community College, which is based in Gardner and has satellite campuses in Fitchburg, Leominster and Devens, Dean of Enrollment Management Marcia RosburyHenne said enrollment is down about 14% year-to-date.
She also pointed to job loss and insecurity as major factors that are deterring students from taking full course loads or entering into a degree programs.
Rosbury-Henne said MWCC worked hard to reach out to prospective and current students and provide them with many support services to keep them on track. Those services are designed to help them meet their academic and career goals and navigate the financial aid process and available scholarship opportunities, she said.
That also includes working with local business and industry to prepare students for the workforce and meet the needs of area employers, and providing numerous career networking opportunities and workshops to help them further their goals, Rosbury-Henne said.
“There are so many variables that the community college stu
dent has, so anything that we can do at The Mount to really meet their needs, meet them where they are, that’s what we’re all about,” she said.
MWCC may have been able to absorb some of this year’s enrollment decline due to enrollment growth over the last few years, so it hasn’t fallen as far behind as some other local institutions have, Rosbury-Henne said.
Some programs, largely in health-related fields, actually saw upticks in enrollment, and she believes that is directly related to the pandemic.
While a lot of colleges are removing courses and programs, MWCC recently added a new computer science program and dual-language program in business administration, she said.
Rosbury-Henne said MWCC has also offered seven-week accelerated courses for many years, primarily through its Leominster campus. She said the option is well-received by students, especially those juggling many other responsibilities.
At Middlesex Community College, with campuses in Bedford and Lowell, enrollment was down 8% in the fall. According to data President James Mabry shared with the board of trustees in late January, MCC was on track to experience a nearly 25% decrease in enrollment in the spring semester.
Now with the semester underway, Mabry said Thursday the enrollment decline stands at 18% — better than what was expected, but still not where the college wants to be.
Mabry, who serves as chair of the Community College Council of Presidents, said MCC is about middle of the pack in terms of enrollment decline among Massachusetts’ 15 community colleg
‘There are so many variables that the community college student has, so anything that we can do at The Mount to really meet their needs, meet them where they are, that’s what we’re all about.’
– Marcia Rosbury-Henne, Dean of Enrollment Management
es.
“What we’re seeing right now is the continued disparate impacts of this pandemic,” he said.
Students and families who are low-income and of communities of color have been hit much harder by the pandemic and resulting recession, especially those who worked in the retail, hospitality and service industries, Mabry said.
“Those jobs are gone,” he said. “Our students are struggling financially. They’re trying to keep their families together, they’re trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head, and education has really just been pushed aside.”
While there is little the college can do to solve major problems like the pandemic and the economy, it can try to solve as many problems as possible for students to help them continue or get back on track with their education, Mabry said. That has included repeated outreach to students individually through many modes of communication, making sure they’re signed up for all the financial aid they’re eligible for and adjusting course schedules to meet their needs.
Provost Phil Sisson said the days of just offering two semesters and a summer session are long gone. He said MCC started offering shorter, accelerated sessions awhile back with the threeweek winter session and the reformatting of summer sessions to, for example, capture graduating seniors who want to get a jumpstart on their college career.
The most successful initiative, started in 2018, is the mini-mester, Sisson said, which essentially breaks the regular semester into two smaller sessions that allow students to focus on one or two intensive courses over seven to eight weeks.
Instead of committing to a full semester at once, the mini-mester enables students to take classes as they can afford them and otherwise fit into their changing schedules, he said.
“A lot can go wrong in a student’s life in 15 weeks,” Sisson said. “They can lose a job, a car can break down, they can have family issues, they can get sick. There’s a number of life interventions that can keep them from being successful across a longer semester.”
For students who may register for classes too late for a regular semester, it also gives them a chance to start midway through the period instead of having to wait until the following semester, he said.
Sisson said students like it and faculty have had success in adapting to the format. It can be a scheduling challenge, he said, but it’s worth it because it meets the needs of students and provides more time for planning and academic and financial advising.
The interest in the mini-mesters has grown by leaps and bounds. The very first minimester in fall 2018 had 142 students enrolled across eight courses. The most recent completed mini-mester, that begin midway through fall 2020, saw 690 students enrolled across 57 course sections.
“When we look at all of our enrollment, it’s the one area that we see significant growth,” Sisson said. Prior to the pandemic, there was also significant growth in online courses, he said.
Mabry said MCC’s long history of online teaching and use of technology really helped the college to pivot and bring most of its courses into a digital format during the pandemic.
Due to the enrollment decline, MCC had to trim some courses this semester but did so in a way that wouldn’t impact student graduation requirements, he said. It did not reduce full-time positions, but adjunct faculty were assigned fewer course sections, he said.
Mabry said everyone across the college has been careful about reducing costs, and there was significant savings from reduced energy costs because not all of the buildings were fully functioning.
He said the congressional delegation has been very helpful in passing federal emergency and stimulus funding that helps provide additional financial aid for students, and having a community college professor, Dr. Jill Biden, as first lady, “can do only good things for the community college systems across the country.”