Recession sending more students to community colleges

College freshman Elizabeth Hebert’s choice of a four-year school suddenly got too expensive. George Haseltine already has a business degree, but he concluded after several layoffs that he needed more training to get work.

So in the middle of this school year, both landed at New Hampshire Technical Institute, which like other community colleges across the country has suddenly grown a lot more crowded.

The two-year schools are reporting unprecedented enrollment increases this semester, driven by students from traditional colleges seeking more bang for their buck and by laid-off older workers.
But community colleges aren’t exactly cheering in this down economy: Tuition doesn’t come close to covering costs, and the state funds used to make up the difference are drying up.

Final figures aren’t in for this semester, but a national group representing community colleges says the average increase from spring-to-spring is dramatic, and similar to what New Hampshire is reporting at its seven schools – a range of 4 percent to 19 percent.

The figure is 20 percent in Maine and South Carolina. One school in Idaho has more than twice the number of students this spring compared to last.

Last fall, Hebert, of Antrim, N.H., began her first semester at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts. But as the economy fell, she began rethinking the thousands of dollars in loans she was carrying – at age 18.

“It was the realization of paying $30,000 a year for four years, and then to take that in loans, it was just way too much,” said Hebert, who is now paying $3,000 a semester at New Hampshire Technical Institute.

Haseltine, 25, of Rochester, N.Y., said, “The economy being in shambles pretty much, being constantly laid off, and not having lucrative job offers,” he said. “They are three reasons why.”