Enrollment in San Diego Community Colleges Tumbles Sharply

Enrollment in San Diego’s community colleges has fallen drastically--especially among minorities, and particularly among blacks.

College officials say the $50-a-semester maximum tuition imposed in September has apparently taken its toll. Preliminary figures for the spring semester for the San Diego Community College District show an overall decline in enrollment of 22% since last year, a decline in minority enrollment of 30.6%, and a drop among blacks of 42.5%.

The drop was not unexpected, but is more drastic than many officials anticipated.

“My criticism all along when we were talking about instituting that fee is that it would hurt enrollment in the low-income areas,” said Charles Reid, the lone black trustee on the San Diego Community College board.

At the same time, officials say it is difficult to gauge the impact of the $50 fee. The aging of the “baby boom” generation and, ironically, the improving economy also are cited as major factors.

Dependent on Economy

“Historically, when the economy improves, enrollment goes down. When the economy is good, people are working and they’re not in school,” said Delena Bratton, a spokeswoman for the office of the chancellor of the state community college system.

Reed and Ivan Jones, president of Grossmont College in El Cajon, suggested that confusion over the $50 tuition has perhaps had as great an impact as the fee itself.

“The tuition came so quickly and with so much confusion that we didn’t really have an opportunity to explain that it is only $50,” Jones said. “They hear there’s tuition and they automatically think in terms of $500 or $700.”

For example, officials say, some students may incorrectly believe that the tuition is $50 per class, or $50 for any student, regardless of the number of classes taken.

In fact, the fee is $5 per unit up to a maximum of $50. Thus, students who take more than 10 units are essentially taking extra units for no extra charge.

Some Less Expensive

And in some instances, Jones said, community college students are paying less than before because when the tuition was implemented, the supply fees for certain science classes were dropped.

Officials also stress that students seem unaware that financial aid is available.

The San Diego district is hoping to gain a clearer understanding of the reasons behind the exodus. Lynn Ceresino Neault, an administrative analyst for the district, said a mail and telephone survey will be conducted with 20% of the people who enrolled last fall but failed to re-enroll for the spring semester.

“We’ll just ask them why they didn’t come back,” Neault explained. “Is it the tuition? Is it that they just wanted to take one class and they did what they had to do?”

The $50 tuition is scheduled for a review next year. “I’m trying to keep an open mind,” Reid said. “I’ll be looking forward to reviewing the data we’ve compiled.”

The escalating cost of a college education has had another visible impact on the community colleges. Although the overall enrollment has been dropping, the number of full-time students has increased 20% in the San Diego district, Neault said.

Neault suggested that the increasing costs of four-year universities have turned students into bargain hunters. At community colleges, students may complete their first two years of college for a total tuition of $200. Under existing rates, comparable costs would be about $1,328 at San Diego State University, $2,700 at UC San Diego and substantially higher at private universities.

Ethnic Data

Neault provided the following ethnic data to compare current districtwide enrollment with the year-earlier enrollment: Anglo down 17.6%, to 16,022 from 19,453; black down 42.5%, to 1,715 from 2,981; Latino, down 21.6%, to 2,237 from 2,852; Asian down 25.6% to 2,123 from 2,853; Filipino down 24.7%, to 852 from 1,131; American Indian down 26.8%, to 369 from 504, and other ethnic groups down 26.8, to 543 from 690. (The figures are accurate as of Jan. 5 for both years. While the total numbers will increase, the ethnic percentages are not expected to change drastically, Neault said. Spring classes start Monday.)

Moreover, the largest enrollment drops in the San Diego Community College District have been at the Educational Cultural Complex and San Diego City College, the two campuses that serve predominantly minority Southeast San Diego. At ECC, which has a relatively small, adult education-oriented program, enrollment has fallen 51%. Enrollment has dropped 30.5% at San Diego City College.

The two other San Diego district colleges--Mesa and Miramar--have much larger Anglo student populations. Enrollment at Mesa is down 19.6%. Enrollment is down only 1% at Miramar--largely because of the success of police and fire department training classes at the schools, according to Neault.

The student bodies at San Diego County’s other community colleges --Grossmont, Palomar and MiraCosta--have much smaller minority populations.

The best available data compared fall, 1983, enrollment to fall, 1984. (The spring semester is starting later at those three colleges.) Reviews of those statistics showed that minority enrollment dropped at virtually the same pace as the overall enrollment. At Palomar and MiraCosta, the enrollment of Latinos increased slightly, while the enrollment of minorities and whites dropped.

Omar Scheidt, president of Palomar College, emphasized that there is great ethnic diversity among the students attending elementary, junior high and senior high schools --the future generation of college students.

“The future says we’re going to have more minority students,” he said. “The colleges must gear up for a high-minority clientele.”