According to the Association of Community Colleges, students enrolled during the 2013 – 2014 academic year had the following characteristics.
• 39% of students were enrolled full-time
• 69% of students had a job
• 15% of students enrolled full-time, did not have a job
o What percent of students that had a job did not go to school full time?
o What percent of students did not work?
Answer:
Trends in Community Colleges: Enrollment, Prices, Student Debt, and Completion
credential have focused considerable
attention on community colleges,
which offer primarily associate degrees
and short-term certificates, often
involving preparation for specific
occupations. President Obama’s
proposal for making community
college tuition-free has intensified this
attention. Understanding the students
this sector serves, how they finance
their education, and whether they
succeed in earning the credentials they
seek is critical to policy development.
In this brief, we summarize key data
about community college enrollment,
the characteristics of students in this
sector, the sticker and net prices
students face, student debt, and
completion rates.
Enrollment and Student
Characteristics
Enrollment in both the public two-year
sector and the for-profit sector of
postsecondary education increased
rapidly between 2000 and 2010, but it
has declined since then. As shown in
Figure 1, all postsecondary sectors saw
significant undergraduate enrollment
growth from 2000 to 2010. During this
10-year period, total enrollment in the
public two-year sector increased from
5.7 million to 7.9 million; full-time
enrollment increased from 2.0 million
to 3.3 million. The for-profit sector saw
the fastest growth in enrollment over
this decade: its share of total
undergraduate students more than
tripled, and its share of full-time
undergraduate students nearly tripled.
The share of full-time undergraduate
enrollment in community colleges
increased by four percentage points
over the decade, while the share of all
undergraduate enrollment in the sector
remained stable.
Between 2010 and 2014, both full-time
and all undergraduate enrollments
declined at public two-year and for-
profit colleges while increasing slightly
at public and private nonprofit four-
year institutions. During this period,
community colleges’ enrollment share
declined from 29% to 25% of full-time
undergraduate and from 44% to 42% of
all undergraduate students.2
Variation across states
There is wide variation in enrollment
patterns across states. In fall 2014, the
number of students in the public
two-year sector ranged from under
10,000 in three states to 729,000 in
Texas and 1.46 million in California
(Figure 2). The percentage of all public
undergraduate students in the two-year
sector ranged from 20% in South
Dakota and Montana to over 65% in
Wyoming, Illinois, and California
(Figure 3).3
2. In this brief, four-year institution categories
include only those institutions where more than
50% of degrees/certificates awarded are
bachelor’s degrees or higher.
3. Alaska does not have a separate community
college system. Data from IPEDS categorize an
institution that awards any four-year degree as a
four-year institution. By that definition, less than
10% of Florida’s public undergraduate
enrollment is in the two-year sector, compared to
63% by our definition. Florida is one of 22 states
that have authorized their community colleges to
confer four-year degrees (Radwin & Horn, 2014).