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The Charlotte region’s community colleges have quickly become a haven for displaced workers trying to find new careers or broaden their skills.
Many of the schools are reporting double-digit enrollment increases. But the statewide budget crunch is making it tough for the colleges to accommodate the rapidly rising influx of students.
“We’ve had to send money back to the state at a time when we needed it more than ever,” says Rhonda Wood, director of student registration and records at Gaston College. “We don’t really have the funds to do what we want to do.”
Gaston College had planned for a 1% to 2% rise in its student population this year, she says. But enrollment jumped 25% for the fall semester, rising to 6,500 students, many of whom attend part time.
The number of full-time equivalent students is 2,740, up 27% from a year ago.
In Charlotte, Central Piedmont Community College estimates it turned away about 5,000 students last year, citing a lack of funding for scholarships and space constraints, says Jessica Graham, assistant to president, community relations and marketing services.
“I would anticipate that number to be similar, if not a little bigger, this year.”
The school estimates its full-time enrollment at 7,144 this fall. That’s an 11% increase from last year, Graham says. And enrollment is up 35.4% since 2006, she adds.
North Carolina’s funding for community colleges is based on the previous year’s enrollment. Because the schools have so many more students this fall, that approach is proving inadequate.
Plus, North Carolina lawmakers cut funding for community colleges last summer as they balanced the state budget.
CPCC, the state’s largest community college, has been dealt budget cuts of more than $7.6 million for fiscal 2009 at the county and state level.
A tuition increase of $8 per credit hour to $50 is helping the N.C. Community College System weather the storm, says Kennon Briggs, system executive vice president and chief of staff.
But there’s no money to hire additional faculty members or provide student-support personnel such as counselors, he says.
Meanwhile, schools statewide are seeing fuller classrooms.
An estimated 15,000 more students are enrolled in the system this year without additional funds to support them, Briggs says.
“We really are going to be facing a huge space concern in the near term because of demand,” he says.
A displaced-worker program that starts early next year at CPCC should further boost its enrollment. The program will train the unemployed to re-enter the workplace in six to 12 months.
School officials say such offerings are crucial to an economic recovery.
“We are the answer in many cases to what’s going on,” CPCC’s Graham says.
At Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, enrollment in welding, automotive and air-conditioning classes has doubled, says Carol Spalding, president.