Plummeting Community-College Enrollments: Inside the Numbers

One enrollment trend has become increasingly clear since the global pandemic began: Students just aren’t showing up at community colleges.

Reports of sharp declines in the number of students at public two-year institutions date back to the summer, when data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center showed a drop of nearly 6 percent from a year earlier.

Early in the fall semester, things looked even worse, with the plunge deepening to 7.5 percent from the previous year. Then as now, community colleges continued to suffer the most of all institution types, and they didn’t benefit from typical countercyclical trends. Community colleges often see an influx of new students looking to retool their skills during economic downturns. But that has yet to happen, in part because of the widespread health risks from the pandemic.

The latest enrollment data from the center, released in mid-November, show that the downward trend hasn’t let up, with the drop in attendance from a year ago now standing at 9.5 percent. For the public two-year colleges that are most likely to enroll low-income and minority students, the equity implications of the enrollment dropoff are troubling. Community-college attendance by Black, Hispanic, and Native American first-time students was down nearly 30 percent for each group.

Here’s a more detailed look at the enrollment trends at community colleges right now: