Fresno-area community colleges could lose millions as enrollment plunges during COVID

As enrollment declines during the pandemic, community colleges face losing a chunk of their budgets in the years to come if students don’t come back, according to State Center Community College officials.

State Center is down about 3,200 full-time students, according to Cheryl Sullivan, vice chancellor of finance and administration. She spoke about the 2021-2022 budget at the district’s monthly board meeting on May 31.

A major part of the funding for California Community Colleges, like most public schools, is tied to enrollment.

What’s happening at Fresno City, Clovis and Madera Community, and Reedley colleges is not unique to the central San Joaquin Valley.

Community college enrollment declined across the United States by about 11% between spring 2020 and spring 2021, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

To soften the blow for the next few years, the state is allowing colleges to average out the last three years of enrollment and not count 2020 enrollment levels.

“Which is really good,” Sullivan said, adding that it would be “staggering” to take the actual loss of funding. She said there are many variables in the formulas she runs, and “each scenario/question really has the answer of ‘it depends.’”

But she did estimate the monetary loss to be about $8.4 million from one year to the next beginning in 2023-2024 if enrollment doesn’t improve.

“Over the next several years, we’re not facing significant economic stress, but we will once the formula catches up with our enrollment declines,” said interim Chancellor Doug Houston.

Still, the district’s finances are looking sunnier than last year when it was thought that the coronavirus pandemic would plunge the state into economic instability. But despite lower-income residents struggling with job losses, many of the state’s wealthy residents continued to work, resulting in billions of dollars in revenue surplus.

COVID relief funds

Also helping to balance the district’s budget is one-time federal COVID relief funds schools received over the past year.

Fresno City College received $5.6 million last spring to give as direct cash aid to students. It’s also budgeted about $890,000 in funds from HEERF and CARES funds for that same purpose.

The college also used $136,000 to offset the cost of refunding parking passes and excused class withdrawals for last spring. So far, Fresno City has used $208,000 to train faculty for distance learning, $30,000 for instructional supplies, and about $1.5 million for technology to bring classes online.

Other COVID-related expenditures include $220,000 from a federal block grant for personal protective equipment at Fresno City College and $46,970 to pay Reedley College students to clean due to COVID-19.

Will students return to college?

When Gov. Gavin Newsom released the revised proposed 2021-2022 budget in May, he included one-time funds to help California Community Colleges retain and recruit students. That includes $120 million to support retention and enrollment strategies and $75 million to expand dual enrollment, which lets high school students take college courses. The 116 community colleges would share a piece of that funding.

Houston said the one-time funds “take the pressure off the impact of the recession, but that doesn’t help us with the second dynamic, and that is the impact of enrollment declines.”

The Central Valley is already one of the regions in the state with the fewest college graduates. Educational attainment has been linked to lower poverty rates and a higher chance of unemployment.

Houston said people typically flock to community colleges during recessions to secure additional employment skills after job losses.

“That simply is not the case right now,” he said.

Trustee Nasreen Johnson felt optimistic that when most children return to school campuses in the fall, so too will their parents.

“I do think that a number of students have been in a position to not be able to focus on their own education because they have children who are not in physical school,” she said. “I think that once the K-12 is opened up, we will see a different situation, and perhaps it’ll behave more like a regular recession or an unsteady time, and we’ll see that in our open enrollments.”

Sullivan said she’s hoping that “COVID restrictions lessen and our students have fewer barriers (child care, technology, learning environments, etc.) so that we will be able to re-engage with them and keep them on their educational paths.”

This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 11:00 AM.