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Double-digit enrollment drop reported at West Virginia’s community and technical colleges

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The number of students enrolled in West Virginia’s community and technical colleges has declined by 17 percent compared with this time last year, members of the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical Education were told Thursday.

“I don’t think this was necessarily unexpected,” Chris Treadway, senior director of research and policy for the West Virginia Community and Technical College System, said of the effects of COVID-19 on the student numbers.

Chris Treadway

“As bad as it is, I don’t think it’s necessarily as bad as we thought it could be.”

The decrease worked out to about 2,700 hundred fewer students when dual enrollment high school students were excluded and more than 3,000 when they were added to totals.

In terms of total headcount for Fall 2019, without dual enrollment, 15,928 students were enrolled at a state community or technical college. The number for 2020 was 13,185.

With dual enrollment students, for Fall 2019, 19,147 students were taking classes at a state community or technical college. The number for 2020 was 15,817.

Some of the decrease, Treadway said, could be attributed to a change in student tracking that had been implemented since Fall 2019 which altered how some students were categorized, but he said most of it was connected to the pandemic.

One of the groups with the steepest enrollment drops for Fall 2020 was the overall high school student group.

“Those students just, in many cases, weren’t able to take college courses while enrolled in high school right now because many of them are learning virtually,” Treadway said.

For those just out of high school, the enrollment decline was about six percent, but it jumped to 27 percent for older students.

Dr. Sarah Armstrong Tucker

“We know that our adult, part-time students have families and jobs and lives that they’re trying to balance and they’ve got kids that are going to virtual school,” said Dr. Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor for the West Virginia Community and Technical College System and the Higher Education Policy Commission.

“It’s a real challenge right now for your non-traditional college student to try to go to college with all of the unbelievable challenges that COVID has put in front of them.”

Students in workforce training or retraining programs have also been affected.

“The work that the colleges do and have historically done with business and industry to retrain and retool their employees isn’t happening right now,” Dr. Tucker said.

At the state’s colleges and universities, overall enrollment had dropped by 2.8 percent for Fall 2020 compared with Fall 2019 in a report members of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission received in November.

The full report for community and technical colleges was available HERE.

“There’s just so many factors playing into this right now,” Treadway said. “This is in line with what we’re seeing nationally.”





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