Heartland Community College enrollment on the first day of classes was down 8.6% among students and 8.4% in credit hours.
Sarah Diel-Hunt, Heartland’s vice president of enrollment and student services, said the decline is in line with other community colleges across the state and nation.
“What we are pleased about is we enrolled a higher percentage of our continuing students from last spring. Once we get them here and they get to see the quality of our classes and what we can do, we can keep them,” said Diel-Hunt.
Diel-Hunt said the college in Normal also saw pockets of steeper declines that worry Heartland leaders.
The pandemic has had well documented disproportionate effects on minorities and low-income Americans in health and employment. The enrollment data suggest education might be another such hit.
“Most concerning to me is that we saw first-generation college student enrollment down 21%, and that’s an audience we really serve and serve well. Also, underrepresented racial and ethnicity enrollment is down 16% with the largest decline for us in our Black student enrollment which is down close to 30%,” said Diel-Hunt.
The causes for the minority and first-generation student opt-out could be varied, she said, and include employment challenges, lack of internet access, the perception of increased difficulty to secure online enrollment, and a lack of personal technology.
“I think it could be a perception of all of those things. The irony of it is we have never been better situated to serve those students. We chose to target our governor’s relief funds directly to those populations to help them with tuition, to help them with technology advice, internet needs,” she said. “We can even use them to erase a debt from the spring or summer term if they are carrying a debt load with us. We have more money than we’ve ever had before to assist those students and we have more supports than we’ve ever had.”
Diel-Hunt noted the drop runs counter to the historical pattern of enrollment booms during economic hard times when it may be easier to go to school than to find a job.
“What we’re seeing in those populations is they’re just opting out this fall either due to just their personal situations or due to the fact they view this is (as) a short-term situation and they could see a return to in- person classes next spring,” said Diel-Hunt.
Throughout the summer, educators nationwide had wondered whether community colleges might pick up some enrollment from students who otherwise might have gone to a four-year institution. The idea was that if both prospective institutions schedule online courses some students would pick the less expensive option. Diel-Hunt said Heartland and other community colleges have not found data to support that line of thought.
She said Heartland and many community colleges decided to give teachers surety and time to plan and announced remote learning course decisions earlier than most four-year institutions, which may have encouraged students who looked at four-year institutions to delay their own decisions until the end.
The Heartland figures are preliminary. The usual standard is to report enrollment numbers on the 10th day of classes. And Diel-Hunt said the institution hopes to move the needle with a second big push at fall enrollment to attract students to courses that begin after Labor Day.
“We have financial assistance. We are able to help you afford to go back to school,whether it’s paying for the classes, paying for the books, getting you a device, getting you an internet hot spot. We’re also able to help you with individual and personalized supports to help you navigate the virtual environment,” said Diel-Hunt.
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