Can Community Colleges Maintain Momentum in 2025?

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0:00:10.3 Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. Our guests today examine reasons behind the recent surge in enrollment and retention at community colleges. They also offer tips on how to sustain that momentum going forward. So give these folks a listen and enjoy.

0:00:32.3 Tara Zirkel: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. My name is Tara Zirkel and I’m a Director of Strategic Research here at EAB. I’ve spent most of the past 20 years working in the community college sector and I’m excited to see the momentum that community colleges have gained in 2024, after facing enrollment and retention challenges during the pandemic. Today enrollment is up almost 6% over last year, which outpaces every other higher education sector. Retention rates now are higher than before the pandemic and the public perception of community colleges remains strong. So as we see this stabilization now the question is, how do community colleges keep this momentum going into 2025? And what trends do institutions need to be on the lookout for that could both help and harm this forward progress? Joining us today to talk about what community colleges can do to keep their momentum in the upcoming year, is Dr. Martha Parham who serves as the Senior Vice President of Public Relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

0:01:37.5 TZ: In service since 1920, the American Association of Community Colleges has aptly been called the voice of America’s community colleges. The association represents and advocates for nearly 1200 associate degree granting institutions enrolling more than 12 million students. Welcome to the show Dr. Parham.

0:01:57.7 Martha Parham: Thank you so much for letting me come today to talk about one of my favorite topics, “The nation’s community colleges.”

0:02:04.2 TZ: And I know our listeners are eager to learn more about what trends AACC is seeing and your insights on what matters most going into 2025. But before we jump in, I’d love for you to tell our listeners a little more about AACC and what your mission is within the two-year space.

0:02:21.5 MP: Oh thank you for that. AACC is the what we call the voice of the nation’s community colleges. And so we are an advocacy organization located in Washington, DC. And we do what I like to call lead, advocate and advance. So we do a lot in the leadership space, leadership development for our members and people that are looking to become community college administrators as well as leading the sector in important discussions about policy and research and legislation. We advocate, obviously, we advocate in Washington, DC as well as across the country for the programs and services that our community colleges provide, to millions of students each year. And then we advance. So we like to think we advance the sector, we advance the discussions and we bring some thought leadership across the sector with regard to two-year colleges.

0:03:27.6 TZ: Thank you for that context. And I can say as someone who’s personally been in this sector for a really long time, I know I appreciate the work that you do and there’s thousands of people across the country that appreciate the time that you spent advocating for both institutions and students. So with that, one thing we’re following at EAB is that enrollment and retention at community colleges at a national level is starting to rebound, which is really exciting. And we’re not only are we recovering, we’re seeing much more growth than our four-year peers. What do you think is contributing to this recovery?

0:04:07.7 MP: Well, I don’t have the data, as you know, well-know the data comes a little bit later than the activity, but my personal opinion is I think we’re seeing a couple of different things at play. The first thing being a shift in demographics. As we look at these newer generations, I do believe they think of, and perhaps consume education a little bit differently, maybe not on a linear path, as some of us experienced in the past. So I think that’s a slight bit of it. But I also believe we have, it’s kind of a, we’re in the eye of the storm. We have a lot of rhetoric in Washington, DC and across the country about the value and the return on investment of a higher education.

0:05:00.3 MP: We’re also hearing about the student loan crisis and the massive amount of debt that is being incurred for people to get said college education. And community colleges don’t really fall into any of those categories. We are by far the most economical of the sectors in terms of higher education. We’re local, and we provide not just an associate degree that traditional higher education, but we also provide to four million students a year what we call workforce programs. And so those are certificates and nursing and firefighting and truck driving, all of these classes and skills training that allow people to get into a workforce and get a decent paying job without getting a degree. So we just kind of cover all the bases. And I think that’s, we’re finally getting the recognition and people are really zeroing in on all of the different things that we’re able to offer.

0:06:13.8 TZ: I think two things that you mentioned are really interesting. There are things that we’re following at EAB as well, which is that notion of the short term credential. I know over the past year or so, enrollment and short term credentials into your schools is up, I wanna say around 10%. And the demographic that is actually growing the most in that short term credential sort of framework is folks under the age of 20, right? So folks that are younger. And I think for a long time, we’ve thought of short term credentials as this thing for working adults, the 35 year old who has kids and they’re balancing a full time job. And to your point, we’re seeing again, that younger students do consume education a little bit differently. And we see that reflected in that enrollment, that boost in enrollment and those short term credentials.

0:06:58.3 TZ: And I also loved what you said about public perception, because there has been survey data that’s come out that kind of says that, “The public perception of higher education people maybe have some fatigue or some, I hate to use the word distrust, but distrust of what we’re doing in higher education.” But among all of that, community colleges actually fare the best in the survey data, where people generally think that we do provide consistent value, that we do to provide this return on investment. And I think of students who are considering, post-secondary education are being really discerning right now about where they put their money and where they put their time. So I think everything that you said kind of aligns with what we’re seeing at EAB as well. I think that actually kind of in my mind stirs another question, which is, again, it’s interesting to hear what you think is contributing into that momentum that we’re seeing.

0:07:49.7 TZ: And when you look forward into 2025, which trends does AACC see that could spur that recovery forward and which trends could pose obstacles to community college momentum?

0:08:04.3 MP: Well, I think the, I don’t wanna call it a trend because we’ve been doing it for so long, but I think people are just now recognizing the not just the value but the kind of breadth and depth of the workforce skills training programs that are provided at community colleges. And I do think that is going to be something that we’ll hear a lot more about in the coming year. I think there are a lot of other higher education, I hate to call them different sectors ’cause we’re all in higher education, but are looking at getting into that haven’t necessarily been in that space before, like our four year university friends. So that workforce training again, those short, but very impactful programs that allow students to acquire the skills, earn the skills they need to get into a, what we call a family sustaining wage job, that is going to continue to be a major part of what we’re doing at community colleges. I think affordability also is something that we’re gonna, we should probably lean in on pretty heavily because it is indeed what sets us apart. Understanding that community colleges cost about a third of what a four year university kind of in state state university would cost is a major, that’s a major difference for families and for students.

0:09:43.7 MP: And I think you mentioned that the short term programs, the workforce programs are being seen by the younger generations. And we can attribute that to a lot of factors, I think the you know, but not the least of which are you hear a lot of people talking about these types of career programs now, in that, students don’t necessarily need to go to a four year university, they can get training and do these things. And we’re seeing that. We have a partnership with the Metallica, the band Metallica, their foundation, that they wanted to elevate this career training and certificate programs across the country, to show that, kind of, in their words, bring dignity back to the trades. And I think we’re just seeing a lot of that, that there are many, many pathways that students can take to get to a well paying job. Some of the obstacles, I think, are the same that we’ve always seen, obviously cost, while we are more affordable than our counterparts, it still costs us the same amount of money to offer these classes.

0:10:58.4 MP: And so we’ll see, I think, cost and funding and funding models, as usual, will be something that we’re looking at. I don’t necessarily see it as an obstacle because community colleges are always responsive to the needs of their local communities and have weathered various funding changes. And in some cases, states have stopped funding their community colleges, and yet we continue on. So I don’t necessarily see it as an obstacle, but certainly something to watch for, especially as we look at enrollment. So enrollment is trending up at community colleges. But if we look at the demographics that are coming in the coming years, we will see a change in how many, and I’m using air quotes here, college age students are looking for that higher education opportunity, that’s going to shift and be a lot lower. And so the good news for community colleges, again, is that, we tend to serve an older population. So that’s certainly something that we’re looking at as well.

0:12:12.5 TZ: Yeah, we’re watching many of the same trends here at EAB. And I think what you said about the demographic shifts in relation to obstacles is really important because we’ve been talking about the demographic cliff, and I’m also using air quotes right now, for many, many years. And we’re kind of at that cliff now where we’re peering over the cliff, and we’re gonna see this dip in this sort of 15 to 19 year old demographic. And then some of the projections actually show an upswing until about 2041. And around that time is when we’re gonna hit peak population in the US, which means basically after then, we’re gonna have this steady decline, and just a total volume of sort of humans in the US, but also that 15 to 19 year old age group. So I’ve been thinking about it in terms of right now we’re looking at the demographic cliff, but when we hit 2041 it’s almost like demographic Mount Everest, right where we’re gonna look at the top of this mountain where there’s really gonna be no foreseeable bottom to what that decline is going to look like.

0:13:07.9 TZ: So I think it’s really important when we think about obstacles while we might not feel that in 2025, the momentum that we gain now can serve as I think sort of a learning experience and a planning process to think about what’s going to happen in upcoming years. And I think I love that you mentioned affordability ’cause one thing we’ve also been thinking about is under the lens of affordability is opportunity cost as well. So how do we address the financial needs of students from the perspective of how do we help them with tuition books, all those things, but also how do we think about the investment of time and the time that students spend with us and how do we kind of face the opportunity costs that students have?

0:13:51.5 MP: Well, and I think that time is a really important. People care much more deeply now about how they spend their time. And we’re seeing that at post COVID, people are really taking charge of how they spend their time and how they spend their money. They wanna know exactly what they’re gonna get. And I think that’s an interesting trend that our colleges are also paying attention to, is how students are going to demand how they receive their curriculum. It may be different in the coming years. And I did wanna mention, and I don’t think it’s an obstacle per se, but I do think it’s something that everyone’s talking about and not talking about at the same time. And that is a shift in the way that colleges, universities, all of us talk about efforts toward diversity, inclusion and equity. And so we’re seeing that shift and we’re not necessarily seeing it in the work because community colleges are going to serve their population period. And to that end, they wanna ensure that success and completion is a part of that for every student. And so, but I do think that is a topic that a lot of colleges are having to take a look at, as well as we have some colleges that are double and tripling down on these efforts.

0:15:25.3 MP: So we have a real dichotomy going on with regard to those particular issues. And that’s something that we’ll probably be talking about as we head into the new year.

0:15:37.5 TZ: Yeah, and I think that’s actually a really good setup for the next question we have, which is, we talked a little bit about that growing public skepticism, the idea of ROI, idea of what do I get, if I put in, what do I get back in return, sort of the what’s in it for me conversation. And some people are questioning that ROI and people have concerns about the debt that students carry. And community colleges seem to be weathering that storm pretty well, though. And again, surveys show that people generally have a more positive outlook of our sector. Going into next year, how can community colleges continue to position themselves as a first choice in light of students being more discerning, about ROI and value?

0:16:21.6 MP: Well, I think that’s just what it is. Let them know they, we need to to get in there as quickly as we can. As soon as they start even thinking about college, so seventh, eighth, ninth grade, and really start to share the story of the community college and how it can help them and it can help them get to where they want to be faster, cheaper. And without a lot of the hurdles that, again, that linear education so much of what I see in education is sometimes we make students do things just because that’s the way they’ve always been done. And so I think colleges need to step back and take a look at how they talk about the programs and services and how they deliver those to make sure that students understand. Understanding that community colleges serve I think it’s 32% of our students are first generation college students, so they don’t come from a college going culture they don’t understand the terminology, they don’t understand again, what a bursar’s office is. So how can we make sure that they see themselves on our campus in a way that they can navigate and not feel intimidated and not feel like a fish out of water. As soon as we can do that.

0:17:40.8 MP: I think we need to work with our high schools and our high school counselors who tend to for good reason want their students to go to Ivy Leagues or these kind of big name schools, because they want them to shoot for the stars right? If you if you can get into Harvard you can do anything. No offense to Harvard they’re fantastic. But there are also other options for students that maybe aren’t ready to go to an Ivy League. So I think we need to share our stories more. We need to understand that by volume of students, with a total of 10.2 million students approximately each year, we would be the largest sector of higher education if we were one sector.

0:18:31.0 MP: And so our voice should be the loudest in the room. And yet we are continually not funded at the same levels, we are continually kind of the afterthought when it comes to policy and funding and the way in which we’re funded. So I think Community Colleges need to get loud. They need to understand that they have a majority voice and they need to use it.

0:18:55.1 TZ: I love the idea of getting loud to use your words. And I also love what you said about 7th and 8th graders. ‘Cause we had some data at EAB where we surveyed, it was about 20,000 or so high school students. And some of those students were interested in Community College, and we kind of isolated some of the things that they said. And what we learned, is that many of these students, their college search starts in 9th grade, 8th grade. And by the beginning of their junior year, many of these students have actually already decided where they wanna go to college. They pretty much have a college in mind. So if we wait to that junior and senior year of high school to relay our ROI, to relay our value to a student by then, it might be too late. So I really love what you said about, again, engaging these younger students in a conversation about what Community Colleges have to offer the value of our programs, the quality of their programs, the cost efficiency of our programs, and really laying out that pathway as early as we possibly can.

0:19:50.7 MP: Yeah, and I think that high school counselor perception too, is they’re perceiving it in their own way with their own lens as we all do. And so they may just not know about what’s available at the local Community College. And so doing that extended outreach, don’t just look at potentially new students, but who are influencers for those potentially new students? And make them very aware of the things you have a culinary arts program. “Hey, did you know that one of the winners of Top Chef was a Community College student who learned that trade at a Community College culinary program?” Those are the things that I think we need to talk more about.

0:20:34.2 TZ: Yeah, I love that, especially in the social media age, students really latch on to those stories. I do wanna shift gears and actually kind of ask another question too, that I think this is the question that’s at the forefront of all of our minds right now. And one thing that’s kind of been part of overall, public discourse are outcomes of national elections. And as we go into 2025, we are going to see political shifts due to transfers of power, just like we do every four years across all levels of government. What could these shifts mean for Community Colleges and what should they sort of be on the lookout for?

0:21:08.4 MP: Well, I think before we even get into a new administration, people need to understand that we have a new administration every four years. Sometimes we have the same administration, but there’s still a kind of a reset, if you will, every four years of whatever administration. And we work with every administration. As a non-partisan organization, it is our job to work with those elected to ensure that they understand what Community Colleges are, who they serve, and how they serve them. And so that is something that we are very used to here in Washington DC and something that we quite frankly, are very good at. I think it is our job to ensure that the newly elected officials understand our sector. And that’s the thing we have to remember. These folks have so many things on their plate that we want to make sure that we as an organization are set to be the subject matter experts.

0:22:14.9 MP: So, Tara, if you’re newly elected and someone’s bringing you an issue, there’s no way you’re gonna be able to know all the ins and outs of the all of the issues that are brought to you. So we wanna be in a place where you’re picking up the phone and calling us and saying, “How would this impact the Community College sector?” That said, if we look at the new Trump administration and look at it in light of the previous Trump administration, I think Community Colleges can probably understand that we’re going to have a focus on workforce education. That was a major focus of the previous administration where they looked at Community Colleges as a, not just a conduit, but a provider of choice, right? To partner with businesses and community services to ensure that the workforce pipeline was healthy and full.

0:23:13.1 TZ: And I know that AACC is deeply invested in all the topics that we cover today. As we go into 2025, what’s on AACC’s research agenda and what can Community College leaders look forward to from your organization in the upcoming year?

0:23:26.0 MP: Well, I think from a research perspective, it’s all the data. That’s the thing. We like to collect all of the data. So one of the, I think the best things we do each year is perhaps one of the smallest pieces of data but it’s the fast facts, right? Just having all of those immediate facts about the sector, about our students, about who we serve with the demographics and whether they’re full-time or part-time. So I think that’s something we will continue to do, that really provides a good perspective and context really for what the Community Colleges are across the country. But also we’ll be looking at enrollment and dual enrollment in particular which is again, one of those topics that everyone, I get a lot of reporter calls about, “Did you hear about this new dual enrollment?”

0:24:20.4 MP: There’s nothing new about dual enrollment. We’ve been doing it for years. I think that affordability question is going to keep coming up. So that is something that we will continue to look at and find data about and try to be as proactive as possible about providing that data to our members, so they understand where to put their energies into next year’s group of students. And I think AI, as we look at how AI is being used at the Community College to help the staff and faculty, the way students are using it and the curriculum that is needed because Community Colleges are a huge provider of AI skills for the workforce. And so I do think that that’s something we will keep looking into in terms of research to again, provide as much information as we can to our membership as they try to navigate this at a campus level.

0:25:31.7 TZ: I think those topics sound great and they align with some of the work that we’re doing at EAB. AI is something that’s been top of mind for us as well and all the same ways that you mentioned in thinking about it. As we start 2025, I really love your comment on thinking about what’s AI skills students need and what the expectations of employers are. And we’ve had a lot of conversation today about workforce and workforce development and part of those workforce relationships or part of those workforce efforts are having those relationships with employers where we really truly understand in real time, what are the expectations of the skills that students have on day one when they come into a job. And more and more we’re seeing that employers do have expectations around AI literacy. Much the way in the past we’ve had expectations about tech literacy or Microsoft literacy or all kinds of literacy around the technology tools that we use. And as AI expands, it’s going to become one of those expectations that most employers will have, is that students have that baseline comprehension. So it’s really exciting to hear that you’re leaning into that as a research topic. And sort of lastly, and I always close with this question every time I’m on the podcast, if you had three pieces of advice for Community College leaders in 2025, what would they be?

0:26:50.2 MP: Oh, I think invest in yourself and look at, there’s so many ways for Community College leaders to continue to advance their own knowledge and career. You know, we have to keep learning as things shift. So I think invest in yourself, invest in your knowledge base and stay up to date on things like AI. When I hear about college administrators that are like, “I’ve never used AI.” But you should ’cause you need to understand what it is. And so there are a lot of ways I think to invest, and that’s not every Community College administrator for sure. So I think that’s a good thing for 2025. I also think that they should consider looking at data at a national level as well as how that works in their own community.

0:27:50.4 MP: So again, as I said earlier, they can get loud and understand how their data feeds into the national level data. Understand that again, Community Colleges are the largest sector of higher education. Community Colleges serve the majority of underrepresented students. Community Colleges have mostly part-time students, which, how does that impact your own data. So having a better understanding of the data and how that pertains to your data, I think just really enhances again, the knowledge base. And the third piece of advice is to make sure you’re connected to AACC so that you can indeed understand what’s coming next. We have a daily, our CC Daily is an online daily news just about Community Colleges. And so stay abreast of all that’s happening in the sector, which is a lot.

0:28:54.9 TZ: Yeah. As we close out, do you wanna say a little bit about your upcoming conference for folks who wanna stay connected?

0:29:00.5 MP: I do. Everyone should meet us in Nashville this spring for the AACC annual convention. We are very, very excited about what’s gonna happen this year. We have announced our speakers. We have Tamron Hall is going to be speaking along with Ken Jeong and Joel McHale. And if you recall, both of them starred in the sitcom community about a Community College. So it’ll be interesting to hear from them and their take on it. They have very interesting perspectives about the community college that I think people are going to really enjoy hearing about. But aside from that, we have amazing sessions, amazing speakers, and really it’s a place for Community College administrators to come be around people that do what you do, there’s something special about that, that do what you do, be in a safe space with people and really get to know what’s going on across the country. So thank you for letting me add that little plug.

0:30:16.7 TZ: No, I know I get a lot of value out of the conference we go every year. And I think it really, again, is a time to revisit some of the things that we talked about about today related to affordability, workforce training, what do we do about the AI question, how do we tackle the demographic cliff and all these things that are going to be top of mind in 2025. I also like what you said about investing in yourself, I think it’s great advice for community college leaders to kind of unplug sometimes and take some time to really reflect on these issues. And that this time of year sort of the, at the beginning of the calendar year is a really good time to kind of have that reflection and think about how can I be, have a positive impact on students in the upcoming year. But with that, I do wanna thank you so much for finding time to spend with me today. And again, looking forward to all the work that you guys are going to do in 2025 and the impact that’s going to have on our students and our institutions.

0:31:12.9 MP: Well, thank you Tara, and thanks to EAB, because you all really provide us with a lot of great data that we can analyze on behalf of the sector. So I’d like to thank you as well, and I look forward to seeing you in Nashville.

0:31:27.2 TZ: Great. Take care.

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