College of the Redwoods sees enrollment drop

College of the Redwoods is reporting a 20% decline in enrollment for the 2020 fall semester — a problem junior colleges across the state and nation are experiencing as the coronavirus pandemic takes a toll on higher education.

The 116-junior college system across the state is experiencing between a 5% and 7% decline in fall enrollment compared to fall 2019, according to EdSource, which said California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley reported the decline during a Board of Governors meeting Monday.

Redwoods, following its fall census at the beginning of September, reported a fall enrollment of 4,045 students, down 20% from fall 2019’s enrollment of 5,072 students.

The decline in enrollment may in part have to do with students’ unwillingness, or inability, to navigate coursework using distance learning models. Necessitated by COVID-19 protocols, the majority of classes this semester are online with a few exceptions for lab classes, natural resource classes and professional courses.

Michelle Siqueiros, president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a California-based advocacy organization told EdSource, “While many of us are techsavvy, there’s really a sense that students want to be in the classroom,” she said. “This could be a lost generation because typically students who drop out or don’t enroll in college don’t go back.”

In recent years Redwoods had been trending up when it came to enrollment.

In fall 2017 the college counted 4,479 students and the following year in 2018, 4,578. Fall 2019 marked a 10% increase of 2018, a trend which was blunted by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Junior colleges in California are almost entirely funded by the state, and that funding relies heavily on enrollment.

Redwoods receives 70% of its annual funding from base allocations from the state which depend on enrollment data. Another 20% comes from Pell Grant students and the remaining 10%, which also comes form the state, is determined by a few different metrics based around student success.

Typically the state uses an enrollment average over three years to determine how much funding a college receives. However for the 2020-21 fiscal year, the state is allowing colleges to use their three-year averages from 2017-2019 out of respect to the enrollment uncertainty COVID-19 has caused.

Julia Morrison, Vice President of Administrative Services for Redwoods, said it will be “curious to see how long the state will allow (colleges) to use that previous three-year number.”

Morrison said if Redwoods had counted 20% less enrollment in a normal year without a nationwide pandemic, the drop off would certainly effect the 70% base allocation funds it receives from the state.

Morrison said funding from the state typically tells a college how much funding it will receive for a fiscal year months after that fiscal year ends. For example, Redwoods won’t know how much it will receive for fiscal year 2019-20 until February 2021 at the earliest. The conornavirus pandemic has complicated that timeframe, according to Morrison, who said it may be some time before the state it able to tell the college how much funding it will receive.

Morrison said Redwoods proactively made cuts to staffing and to programs in anticipation that state funding may be delayed and eventually prove to be less than needed.

Redwoods President Keith Flamer on June 4 announced via an email to the campus community that the college had frozen the hiring “of all new and replacement permanent non-mission critical general fund and grant/categorically funded positions districtwide, paused the hiring of temporary and contract services with exceptions for essential services, and froze discretionary spending.”

Flamer also announced nine vacant fulltime positions had been cut, and that $475,000 in general funds had been eliminated from the Health, Physical Education, Kinesiology, Recreation, Dance and Athletic department, which included the suspension of the college’s football and volleyball programs, and its Cap and Gown program.

“While many of us are tech-savvy, there’s really a sense that students want to be in the classroom. This could be a lost generation because typically students who drop out or don’t enroll in college don’t go back.” — Michelle Siqueiros, Campaign for College Opportunity