Home News Community colleges at a crossroads: Enrollment is plummeting, but political clout is growing – The Washington Post

Community colleges at a crossroads: Enrollment is plummeting, but political clout is growing – The Washington Post

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CRANFORD, N.J. — As her chemistry laboratory got rolling here one winter morning, with masked students taking their stations at a pandemic-safe distance, community college professor Sherry Heidary aimed to teach more than how to separate mixtures through chromatography.

She exhorted one student to believe in herself. “You’re getting an A, right?” she said, more of a demand than a question. Then the professor gently chided a latecomer who didn’t turn in an assignment. “Not going to happen again, right? Good.”

The lesson behind the lesson: They all belong. There in the lab, there at Union County College, there on the path to a degree.

It’s an urgent message for community colleges everywhere as they struggle to fill classes after a shocking nationwide enrollment plunge in the fall that educators blame on the coronavirus crisis and economic and social upheaval.

“If I cannot keep them in the class, I can’t teach them,” Heidary said. “The first job is, bring them here. And make them want to come.”

Community colleges, long the unsung foundation of higher education in America, have reached a perilous turning point. These two-year public colleges, offering associate’s degrees, workforce training and a low-price opportunity to get started on a bachelor’s degree, had roughly 10 percent fewer students at the beginning of the school year compared with 2019.

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