Chancellor of California Community Colleges Sonya Christian, held a teleconference for student media groups across California on April 23. The conference covered many things, most notably that enrollment appeared to be on the rise from last year across the community college system.
“You can see a tremendous uptick in our enrollments for this year, compared to last year.” said Christian while displaying the Enrollment data of the previous year.
The 2023-2024 numbers were projected to be about 2,059,879 students compared to 1,923,434 students in 2022-2023. That trend appears to be mirrored locally.
In Spring 2022, Delta had an enrollment of 15,197 while in Spring 2023 Delta saw 15,805, an increase of 608.
The presentation by Christian did note that “all but four reporting colleges experience headcount growth.” these colleges were not named
Overall the numbers point to an encouraging upward trend for the community college system following particularly dire straits during the COVID-19 pandemic. But this reprieve from choppy seas may be short-lived.
At the beginning of this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed a budget deficit of $37.9 billion, which was later found to possibly be far larger at $73 billion by LAO ( Legislative Analysis Office), who offer non-partisan analysis and fiscal advice to legislators.
The differing deficits come from vastly during outlooks with newsom’s approach being far more optimistic about the short term, and LAO’s being less so. Following budget cuts to the community college system in 2023 the question was raised if it could again be a target of cuts.
“The good news here is that in the Governor’s January budget, the community colleges were kept intact,” said Christian when asked about the possibility of this budget deficit affecting the community college system in the coming years. But that certainty could not be extended to the future.
“We think that 25-26 (2025-2026) is going to be a very difficult year as well and we’re all locking arms, staying focused on our priorities. We’re being prudent with our budgets,” said Christian. “I am cautiously optimistic. I call on all of us to continue to be vigilant going into not only 24-25 but also 25-26.”
“We at the community colleges, you know, we don’t take anything for granted and I am so happy for the advocacy, right, from our administrators, our colleges, our faculty colleagues, our classified colleagues, and our students,” said Christian.
