PCC wants to enroll more students, but hot labor market is creating competition

A Target in Tucson is starting warehouse workers at $18.55 an hour plus benefits. An online ad for a cashier at QuickTrip says new hires can make anywhere from $12 to $25.50 an hour. And a resort near the Catalina Foothills is offering a minimum of $16 an hour to its next front desk supervisor.

None of those jobs require college degrees, and they are promising wages some recent college graduates are struggling to secure.

Perhaps no institution in Tucson is more aware of this phenomenon — which pandemic-induced labor shortages have fueled — than Pima Community College, where enrollment has dropped more than 18% since the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago. And even before that enrollment was a concern; PCC’s full-time student enrollment dropped from 22,027 students in 2012 to 14,058 in 2019, according to the latest Arizona Auditor General’s report.

“The workforce is our competition. If they’re not here at Pima they’re in the workforce,” David Arellano, dean of enrollment management at PCC, said. “Poverty is also our competition.”

With around 35% of students over the age of 25, PCC students — and community college students in general — are far more likely than those at four-year universities to have unmet basic needs and children or other family members to care for while attending school.

“There’s a lot of job opportunities out there now to get your financial needs met here and now,” Arellano said, noting that Pima’s goal is to create sustainable economic and social mobility for its students. “We do see students taking advantage of those employment opportunities and going to school at the same time. We have other students who aren’t taking advantage of college right now and are going straight into the workforce. Some are so focused on meeting their immediate needs through employment that college isn’t even on their minds.”

Bypassing college for the booming labor market is one reason community college leaders are citing to explain the dramatic enrollment declines two-year colleges like PCC are facing nationwide.

According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse, between fall 2019 and fall 2020, two-year colleges saw a nearly 15% drop in enrollment nationwide.

Robert Fairlie, an economist at the University of California at Santa Cruz who is researching this trend, said it’s too soon to pinpoint the exact reasons why community colleges have lost so many students during the pandemic.

But in addition to the lure of making money now and avoiding any student debt, he also suspects that the remote learning colleges like PCC have adapted to (about 30% of PCC’s courses are taught entirely in person right now) has unintentionally isolated some students.

“Students are not as engaged in classes; they’re not as engaged in being part of a community on campus. All of these things we took for granted with working in person are gone,” Fairlie said. The message he’s heard from students is that “it’s hard to concentrate. It’s hard to talk to advisors. It’s hard to meet that professor after class or have casual conversation with that teaching assistant. Everything right now has to be deliberate. You have to think ahead and plan ahead, and that’s so much harder to do remotely.”

He is not sure what it will take for community college students to start coming back to campus. But he hypothesizes that the barrage of decent paying, no-degree-required jobs available right now are allowing would-be students to take some time off to work before deciding to enroll.

Regardless of the reasons why students are disappearing from two-year colleges, Fairlie said continued enrollment plunges stand to weaken communities like Tucson.

“Firefighters, police officers, nurses and technicians who repair your car are often educated at community colleges,” he said. “These workers keep communities moving.”

Enrollment strategy

So, what is PCC, which relies heavily on local property taxes and tuition dollars to stay afloat, doing to try to recruit and retain more students?

The new spring semester started last week, and before it did, the college laid out its enrollment strategy.

Last fall, it was able to use federal pandemic relief money to forgive 4,500 students’ outstanding balances, which resulted in at least 750 students re-enrolling. It’s also investing in more targeted marketing techniques, expanded dual enrollment offerings and more on-campus child care options. It also offers advising and other student support services in remote and in-person settings, which is another effort to make those resources more accessible to students who may struggle with transportation.

Then of course, there’s Chancellor Lee Lambert’s signature Centers of Excellence, which is an ongoing $35 million project designed to train students for in-demand careers such as auto repair, cybersecurity and hospitality.

Only time will tell if and how these efforts will work to recruit more students amid the unusual market forces the pandemic has created and beyond.

Arellano, the enrollment chief for PCC, said his hope right now is that prospective students who may be torn between the immediate benefits of entering the workforce and the long-term benefits of pursuing PCC’s offerings will recognize the transformational potential of the latter.

“Historically, there’s always been that community college stigma, but I think what we’re seeing in the pandemic is that this is where the community and learners need to come to get re-skilled, cutting-edge training to get a promotion or get that better job,” Arellano said. “During the pandemic, I think a lot of folks are realizing that.”