Community Colleges and the Economic Downturn

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The current economic downturn has consequences for both college students and for colleges and universities. For students of all ages, the loss of a job or the fear of losing a current job - their own employment or that of a parent or spouse – clearly affects enrollment decisions: should I go or return to college, and if so, where, and at what cost. For institutions, the budget problems affecting the states have a clear and direct impact on the resources allocated to public colleges and universities.

Community colleges are the largest segment of American higher education: as of fall 2007, the nation’s public two-year institutions enrolled more than a third (34.6 percent or 6.3 million) of the 18.2 million students enrolled in public, private, and for-profit degree-granting colleges and universities (NCES, 2009, Table 9). It is with good reason that community college leaders proclaim that their institutions are always on the front line of the economy, during good times and bad.

To assess the impact of the current economic downturn on community colleges, the League for Innovation in the Community College and The Campus Computing Project, in partnership with the education business of Pearson, surveyed community college presidents during late February and early March 2009, just after Congress passed the economic stimulus package. The survey, completed by 120 community college presidents and district chancellors, focused on changes in enrollments, campus employment, and budgets between winter 2008 and winter 2009. The survey provides new and timely data about the ways that the economic downturn affects community colleges and community college students, and how the nation’s community colleges are coping with the downturn.