Tidewater Community College is one of many two-year institutions around the country that are shedding employees as they cope with broad enrollment declines.
Tidewater Community College’s third round of layoffs this month came without warning but probably didn’t surprise many of the college’s employees. Tidewater, which is located in Virginia, has struggled with enrollment in recent years, dropping from roughly 48,000 students in 2011 to 34,000 students in 2016.
The two-year college’s enrollment issues are not unique — community colleges across Virginia, and the country as a whole, have shed students for the past six years or so since the economy began recovering from the Great Recession. And the problem doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Arizona’s Pima Community College earlier this month announced plans to eliminate 6 percent of its employees’ positions, while St. Louis Community College laid off about 70 faculty members and 25 staff members in December.
“The national trends are that since our peak in 2010, at the height of the recession, we’ve lost about 14 percent of our students across all two-year institutions,” said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis at the American Association of Community Colleges.
On the upside, the rate of decline at U.S. community colleges has slowed in recent years, according to enrollment estimates for the current term from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. In fall 2017, 5,624,282 students were enrolled in two-year institutions, down 1.7 percent from the year before. From 2015 to 2016, enrollment declined 2.6 percent.