Fresno City College has lost thousands of students since 2020. Why it’s a ‘community issue’

Fresno-area community college leaders hope enrollment will rebound this fall even as a new report shows fewer students attended colleges across the U.S. in the last year.

Undergraduate enrollment in the nation fell by more than 662,000, or 4.7% this spring compared with spring 2021, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s annual report.

Community colleges suffered the most with a 7.8% decline, losing 351,000 students — and Fresno City College was no exception, according to district data.

In spring 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, there were 23,090 students attending the college. In spring 2021, that number had dropped to 20,540, and this spring, it was 18,214. In the years prior, it appeared the college was gaining in enrollment.

As a whole, State Center Community College enrolled 41,275 individual students in spring 2020. It dipped to 35,903 in 2021 and to 34,098 in 2022.

But Carole Goldsmith, chancellor at State Center, said she remains optimistic that more students may attend this fall based on the early registration numbers.

“The good news is we’re trending in the right direction,” she told The Education Lab. “We’re still not where we were before the pandemic, but we’re better than the last two years.”

The only two State Center campuses that increased enrollment for spring semesters were the Career and Technology Center and Madera Community College. The CTC grew from 1,292 students in 2020 to 1,309 in 2021.

The Madera campus, which became an official college in the summer of 2020, grew from 4,670 to 5,105 in that same time frame.

Decline not as steep as 2021

Although colleges have yet to recover from pandemic losses, it’s not all bad news, according to the new report.

The rate of decline for all colleges this spring is steeper than for fall 2021 but just below the 4.9% drop in spring 2021, according to the report. More students typically enroll in the fall semesters.

About 6,000 more freshmen attended a community college this spring, an increase of 3.1%, according to the report, after 2021 saw a 23,000, or 10.7% loss. Nearly six out of 10 freshmen attended a community college.

Two-year trades programs, such as mechanics and culinary, also saw growth, but only the growth of construction majors matched pre-pandemic levels of enrollment, the report read.

Men ‘disappeared on us’

Goldsmith said when enrollment began to drop as the pandemic emerged, college leaders started looking into who they were losing. According to the Student Clearinghouse report, colleges saw almost double the number of women drop out than they did men, but at State Center, a different picture emerged.

We saw decreases everywhere,” Goldsmith said, “but what we saw was a decrease in men 18 to 24 in every ethnicity … every economic group.”

Goldsmith said she put into place a commission to engage with this demographic, working with school districts, Boys and Girls Clubs and other community organizations, hoping the population will return.

“We’re doing more outreach with our men of color because we know that actually all men, they kind of disappeared on us,” she said.

Funding for colleges is based on how many students are enrolled each year, so Goldsmith said she’s remaining cautious, but hopeful revenue won’t suffer. But “more importantly,” she said, the decline also has her worried about what it means for the community.

“When your community is not seeking higher education, that means a lack of quality of life,” she said. “We know that wages are directly connected to health indicators and all sorts of quality of life indicators. So for me, this is a community issue that we need to keep an eye on.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.