Quick Take
If current enrollment trends hold, Cabrillo College could see a 10% increase in enrollment this year compared to last year. President Matt Wetstein told Lookout he thinks improved outreach and economics could be reasons for the uptick.
Cabrillo College President Matt Wetstein said the college’s enrollment patterns are looking much better this fall compared to last year.
“We’re up 10% for the fall-to-fall comparison, but it’s really early,” he said, adding that the school year starts Aug. 26. “It’s great, I’m happy about it.”
While Wetstein said he can’t be certain about why enrollment looks better this year, he has two main ideas: improved outreach to high school seniors and economic challenges tipping students to consider more affordable community colleges.
The college has about 3,031 full-time-equivalent students enrolled for the fall compared to last year’s 2,624 students. Terrence Willett, dean of research and planning, told Lookout that the difference is 15.5%, but accounting for fraudulent applications and students who end up choosing not to enroll, the school is estimating that the more accurate number is actually around 10%.
Enrollment at Cabrillo College, like at many higher education institutions, hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels but is showing signs of recovery. At the same time of the year in 2019, a total of 3,138 students were enrolled for the fall term – about 3.4% more than this year.
Wetstein acknowledges this “weird” time for higher education institutions as people are seeing less value in getting degrees. But he said he believes that community colleges still have the general public’s attention. He cited a recent Gallup poll that found that 15% of Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in community colleges, compared to just 11% of Americans who feel similarly about four-year universities.
He thinks generally the public knows that community colleges are more affordable, and some people believe they provide students with more opportunities for career training than four-year universities. Wetstein said, for example, dental hygiene or radiological technology students can immediately enter the workforce and get a job that pays decent wages.
“It’s a weird cultural moment. I will say that the critique of higher ed is one that I think resonates more with the public in thinking about four-year universities and four-year colleges,” he said. “I feel like the support for community colleges is actually stronger than it is for four-years.”
He said one reason Cabrillo could be seeing an enrollment increase this year is challenges students face when trying to file and submit federal financial aid forms.
This year, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), run by the U.S. Department of Education, rolled out its system with glitches that made it much more difficult for students with mixed immigration status to apply. A student with mixed immigration status has one or multiple parents who don’t have a Social Security number.
The number of high school students nationally who completed their FAFSA forms this year is 10.7% lower than this same time last year, according to the National College Attainment Network.
Wetstein said he guesses that Cabrillo might also be seeing an increase due to outreach programs. He thinks the outreach staff’s efforts partially contributed to an 11.5% increase in applicants from local high school seniors over the past few years: 1,400 applicants in spring 2019 compared to 1,561 applicants this spring.
He’s hopeful that by providing much-needed on-campus housing, the college can further attract and retain students. The college is building a joint housing project with UC Santa Cruz that will house a total of 624 students, 60% of whom will be Cabrillo students and 40% will be UCSC students.
Wetstein said he expects Cabrillo’s governing board to vote on an environmental review of the project during its September or October meeting, and potentially vote on a developer contract at its October meeting. If all goes according to that timeline, he hopes the college will break ground on the project by fall 2025.
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