Ventura County community colleges' student enrollment is rebounding from pandemic lows

For Sergio Solis, the decision to hit pause on his Oxnard College career was simple. It was March 2020, and the college's pandemic shift to online classes just wasn't working.

"I was really struggling," Solis, 30, said. "I like to be in class. I like to talk to the professors afterward and ask questions. That's the way I learn."

In January, with many of the community college's courses back in the classroom, Solis decided it was time to pick up where he left off. He returned to campus and sat down in a classroom for his first course in nearly three years.

Solis wasn't the only student to take time off.

Ventura County's three community colleges — Moorpark, Oxnard and Ventura — saw head counts plummet during the pandemic. Districtwide, enrollment dropped by 18%, nearly 6,000 students, between fall 2019 and 2022, according to district fall census data.

The number of countywide public high school graduates actually increased across the same four years, an indication Ventura County Community College District's enrollment woes were more about recruitment and retention than the available pool of students. The colleges' drop threatened the college district's state funding, which is tied in part to enrollment.

But new numbers released by the college district in September show good news. Some students, like Solis, are coming back.

Districtwide enrollment jumped up during the spring 2023 semester, according to state data, before the district saw another bump in the fall.

Early estimates peg current enrollment at just over 29,000 students, an increase of 10% — and nearly 3,000 students — over the low of fall 2022, though still well below pre-pandemic levels.

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The changing tides match a statewide trend. Enrollment across California's 116 community colleges increased by 8% from spring 2022 to 2023, according to a Sept. 22 memo from the California Community College Chancellor's Office.

The state won't process final fall numbers until after the term ends, but the memo said initial fall reports followed the trend, "providing the system a meaningful positive enrollment outlook for the first time in over 5 years."

Jessie Ryan, executive vice president of the nonprofit Campaign for College Opportunity, said the system's enrollment problems had been "incredibly troubling." She welcomed the recent improvements.

"Community colleges are the gateway to opportunity for low-income students and students of color," she said. "We see this as critical to the future workforce."

Ventura County community colleges, students adjust to a new normal

District leaders say the reversal is at least in part down to changes in the conditions they believe drove students away from campus in the first place. Some students, like Solis, preferred to wait out the pandemic until they could take classes in person again.

Cynthia Herrera, a college district vice chancellor, said the district polled students throughout the pandemic on whether they got the classes they wanted and whether they preferred in-person, online or hybrid classes. This August, she said, 90% said they got the courses they desired.

Other students, administrators said, stopped taking classes in order to focus on work.

John Forbes, vice president of academic affairs at Moorpark College, said some students took advantage of increased job openings around the county. Others saw themselves or their families hit hard by the pandemic and needed to focus on survival.

Karla Rojas, 23, lost 20 hours of tutoring work a week when the Oxnard College tutoring center shut down in March 2020. With no Wi-Fi at home to log into class, Rojas said, she failed her courses that semester.

A few months into the pandemic, her family had fallen so far behind on rent they lost their apartment. Instead of returning the next term, Rojas found a job at McDonald's to help make ends meet.

Ryan, the nonprofit executive vice president, said she'd seen students across the state faced with similar choices.

"They were questioning whether it was worth walking away from obligations to family and potential wages," she said.

Some of those students may not return. This fall, with her finances and housing finally stable, Rojas did.

"I feel a little behind, but I know there's no timeline," she said. "It's nice to be at OC."

It took three years, and Rojas said she's working as many as 75 hours a week across multiple jobs, but she picked up a full course load for the fall semester and plans to graduate in a year.

"Everything is starting to get back to normal," Rojas said.

California community college enrollment recovery uneven

Data indicates, though, that "normal" looks different than it did before the pandemic and that the district's enrollment recovery has been uneven.

Moorpark College is just 3% below its fall 2019 head count, according to district estimates, but Oxnard College is still 6% below and Ventura College lags 10% behind pre-pandemic numbers.

The number of students under 20 and over 30 are, in fact, higher than pre-pandemic levels, but enrollment of students between 20 and 30 is recovering more slowly, a statewide trend.

Administrators around the state say there's not a single reason people in their 20s have been slower to return, attributing some of the trend to an attractive job market and some to an uphill battle to get students like Solis and Rojas to return to classes, as reported by CalMatters.

The increase in teenaged and over-30 students is easier to understand. Colleges have made a concerted effort to court those students through high school dual-enrollment programs and career and technical education.

As part of a statewide push, the district's colleges enrolled 600 more dual-enrollment students this fall than last year, roughly 20% of the district's overall improvement.

Herrera, the vice chancellor, said the district hopes that early enrollment will help smooth high school students' pathways to community college and help with retention and recruitment in the long run.

The district, she said, is also investing in career and technical education: programs focused less on transitioning students to four-year universities than on helping working adults upgrade their skills.

"We don't look at our job as being educators. We look at our job as being improvers of economic growth in our county," Herrera said.

With contributions from those two new entry points, the majority of Oxnard College's growth this year was new students, said Oxnard College Vice President Luis Gonzalez.

He said he expects recent enrollment bumps to level off unless the colleges are able to expand dual enrollment and their offerings to working adults. Then, he said, "I think we can sustain it."

Forbes, of Moorpark College, said he thinks the colleges have been forced to "remake the case for higher education," but that he's bent on getting his school back to pre-pandemic enrollment.

"I think we have a great value," he said. "We want a more educated population. It's good for everybody."

Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America. Reach him at isaiah.murtaugh@vcstar.com or 805-437-0236 and follow him on Twitter @isaiahmurtaugh and @vcsschools. You can support this work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Ventura County community college enrollment rebounds unevenly