As the Business Leaders for Michigan report, released earlier this week, gains exposure, the media have latched onto certain narrow elements of it, such as Michigan’s dismal community college enrollment growth rate over the past decade.
To that I will say this: Michigan’s community college enrollment peaked in 2010-2011, as we emerged from the Great Recession. Right off the bat, it’s a little unfair to cry about enrollment declines from their peak. Obviously, anytime you have a peak, you have a decline coming right behind it.
One of the great revelations of the Great Recession was that housing values don’t rise continuously. Or perhaps, that housing values don’t always rise. The idea that the value of the house will rise predicates so much of the argument for owning a home. Housing equity is just like any other investment: just as it can increase, it can also decrease.
I bring this up because it’s a little ironic that the same growth standards we all misapplied to housing values in the Aughts are now being regurgitated and misapplied in the BLM report. In the same way we have to allow for the possibility that our investments in housing (or stocks, or gold, or BitCoin) is also capable of declining, we have to allow for the possibility that continuous growth in community college enrollment might also be elusive at inopportune times.
So, the fact that Michigan’s community colleges have experienced the third worst enrollment growth in the decade immediately following its peak may grab a lot of attention, but there could be a zillion good reasons why this might be so.
Fixing community college enrollment
Michigan has 28 community colleges spread over 83 counties. When you look at peak enrollment (and not every college hit its peak enrollment in the same year), the eight largest community colleges account for nearly two-thirds of the cumulative peak enrollment. When you look at where the enrollment losses occurred, the eight biggest losers (numerically) account for two-thirds of the enrollment losses. And when you look at enrollment loss as a percentage of peak enrollment, eight community colleges lost 50% or more of their student body.
I’m not criticizing the desire to help Michigan’s community colleges, but the help must be applied in the right places to be truly helpful. The largest community colleges are generating the largest enrollment losses. Instead of coming up with half-baked “ideas” based on non-specific data, why doesn’t a dispassionate third-party try to understand why Macomb and Oakland Community Colleges shed the largest number of students. Or why Kellogg and Mott Community Colleges have lost 60%+ of their unduplicated head counts.
How much impact does “place” have on community college enrollment? Six of the eight largest community colleges by peak enrollment are located in Southeast Michigan. Alpena Community College and Gogebic Community College registered the smallest percentage enrollment losses and smallest numerical enrollment losses. Both of those schools are in sparsely populated, highly rural areas of the state. Why are community colleges in the metropolitan areas losing so many students?
More thoughtful analysis might help answer these questions. Broad prescriptions can’t solve ill-defined problems. Rather than spending a bunch of money on a new state agency, why not spend a little more time analyzing the problem(s) to determine what and where they are.
Photo Credit: Mike W., via Flickr
