Enrollment at Highline is down, but college officials say they are taking steps to bring it back up again.

Highline enrollment has fallen from a total headcount of 9,272 in 2018-2019 to 7,606 in 2020-2021, while full-time equivalents have fallen from 6,423 in 2018-2019 to 5,442 in 2020-2021. 

Even with the easing of COVID restrictions, enrollment is down by more than 500 students from Fall 2020. Enrollment is down in nearly all categories — state-funded students, international students, Running Start and worker retraining. Only ELCAP (English Language, Career and Academic Prep) and continuing education enrollments are showing any increase over last year. 

International students say politics is making it harder to come here to study. 

“It is a political reason,” said Trinice To, a student from Hong Kong. “It’s difficult for students in China to transfer to other countries.” 

It’s also challenging to send money here, with government regulations to get around. 

“The process of sending money from China to the US is complicated,” she said. 

Running Start students may have chosen to just stay in high school, some said. 

“I think students might have not enrolled for Running Start because of COVID-19 and they don’t know what will happen in the future,” said current Running Start student Natasha Koshenlyk.  

“They probably took the safe route and continued high school. Another thing I think is a lot of people probably got lazy during COVID and don’t have any more motivation to do college or even have a career at this point, and they just want to finish high school and be done.”

A few students agreed. 

“I had outside responsibilities, I felt it would give me too much stress,” said Gavin Winnekins. 

“I chose not to do Running Start due to things I heard about how much credit you get and not wanting to drive far every day,” said Reid Navilio.  

Highline is not alone; other colleges across the state system have seen their numbers fall. Statewide enrollment has fallen from a total headcount of 212,393 in the 2018-2019 academic year to 169,399 in the 2020-2021 year.  Full-time equivalents have fallen from 144,828 in 2018-2019 to 121,089 in 2020-2021.

Enrollment levels are important as state funding is based on the total number of students studying at Highline.  State allocations are 45 percent of the school’s revenue, which pays for nearly half of its expenses.  All public colleges in Washington state are assigned an enrollment target and need to meet that target or face losing some funding.  

Dr. Emily Lardner, Highline’s vice president for Academic Affairs, said a few factors are  responsible for declining enrollment beyond the effect of COVID-19. 

 “One factor that may be contributing to the decline in our enrollment is tough competition for students from the colleges in our area,”Dr. Lardner said.  “Students have choices about where to go, and some of our neighboring colleges have been working really hard to streamline their recruiting and enrolling processes.”

Highline is also competing with the job market, she said. 

“Another factor is that it’s possible to get decently paid jobs with a high school diploma,” Dr. Lardner said.  “Another factor is that many students are reluctant to take on debt, and it can be challenging to find funding to pay for college.  We are working on strategies to change that, but it’s a complex process.”

Dr. Lardner said declining enrollment affects the college in various ways.  

“A decline in enrollment means a decline in resources because of the decrease in tuition,” she said.  “It also signals that the college needs to review and revise systems and processes that may be getting in students’ ways.”

Dr. Lardner said the college needs to offer things that potential students want. 

“A decline in enrollment also requires the college to examine the programs that it offers to be sure that the programs we are offering are the programs that students want and need to take,” Lardner said.  “We also need to figure out if we are offering classes in the modalities that students want, and at the times students need to take them.

“Declining enrollment affects everyone who works at the college, and it’s everyone’s work to turn things around,” Dr. Lardner said.  “That’s a big task.”

Dr. Lardner said the school has five key strategies for boosting enrollment.  

“We plan to invest in a new software platform that will help students, faculty, and staff connect with each other,” she said.  “Other colleges that have used technology like this have reported that it helps students stay in school because it’s easier for students to get help, to connect with resources, and to know that a team is here at Highline to support them.”

Highline officials hope that the new Guided Pathways approach to advising will also help students stay in school and succeed. 

“We are using Guided Pathways funding from the state to revise and strengthen our intake process, our advising processes, and our processes for supporting students once they are enrolled,” Dr. Lardner said. “A big focus of this work has been asking students about their experiences coming to Highline, and then using what we hear from students to improve these processes.”

She also pointed to the federal grant Highline just received to help more students have success. 

“We just received a Title III grant from the Department of Education.  This is a five-year grant focused on improving students’ experiences from starting at Highline all the way through to graduation,” Dr. Lardner said.  “The grant will also provide more focused professional development for faculty with the goal of improving students’ success in key courses that all students have to take, or that are the entry point for specific degrees.”

And none of this will happen in a vacuum, she said. 

“Highline has a Strategic Enrollment Management team that is developing strategies to make sure that all the various things we are doing connect and reinforce each other,” Dr. Lardner said.

Highline is also reaching out to districts in the college’s service area. 

“We are working closely with Highline Public Schools this year, focusing on supporting seniors at Highline High School who want to become Thunderbirds actually making that happen,” Dr. Lardner said.  “We are approaching this like a case study.  By closely following and supporting these prospective Thunderbirds, we hope to learn how we can make our Highline College processes easier for incoming students to navigate.”

Statewide, the story is much the same. Challenging times are challenging college enrollments. 

Katie Rose, Communications and Marketing associate at the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, pointed to several reasons for declining enrollment across the state.  

“Enrollment in community and technical colleges across the country was very hard hit because of COVID,” said Rose.  “That’s because many of the people served by community and technical colleges are members of populations experiencing disproportionate impacts of the pandemic.” 

Money, as always, is a factor, she said. 

“People are more likely to work in jobs in sectors that experienced closures and reduced hours and people may not have the resources to be able to take classes at home,” Rose said.  “People with young kids who weren’t able to go to school last year, and may not be able to this year, understandably put their own education on the back burner.”

But it’s more than COVID. 

“Enrollment was trending down even before the pandemic,” Rose said.  “The reasons for that are complex.  For one, people aren’t having as many kids.  That means there aren’t as many high schoolers looking to continue their education at a college.”

With so many first-time students across the state, people may not always have the knowledge of how everything works, she said. 

“Another reason is that navigating college, especially for students who are the first in their families to go to college, can be challenging,” Rose said.  “To address that, the community and technical college system is undertaking an initiative called Guided Pathways, a fundamental redesign of how college works for students.

“With Guided Pathways, students choose and stay on a path without spending their valuable time and money on classes they don’t need to graduate,” Rose said.  “The price tag alone can be enough for some students to not apply.  The last thing we want is for people to not enroll because of the cost or graduate with a lot of debt.”

Rose said her group is seeing distinct demographic trends in relation to enrollment.  When viewing their Annual Enrollment Summary 2020-2021, “You’ll see enrollment among students who identified as men dropped more significantly than among those who identify as women (19 percent as opposed to 13 percent),” Rose said.

“You’ll also see significant declines among students who identify as American Indian/Alaskan Native, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian,” Rose said.  “This is particularly concerning because community and technical colleges serve a high population of students of color, 49 percent in the 2020-2021 school year.”

“We saw significant declines among our professional-technical students, down 13 percent, and our Basic Education for Adults students, down 16 percent,” Rose said.  

Josh Gerstman, HIghline vice president of Institutional Advancement, said the college has a number of efforts underway to increase enrollment.

“Our communications and marketing team has several efforts underway that include targeting online advertising on social media and streaming platforms, ads at local movie theaters, and print advertising in local city focused publications,” Gerstman said.  “Our Outreach team is re-establishing contact with high school counselors and finding opportunities to visit with students in local high schools.”

Highline is also offering help for students financially impacted by the pandemic. 

“There is also considerable effort toward helping students stay enrolled by offering emergency funds through supportcenter.highline.edu and through the availability of emergency funds at CARESfunding@highline.edu,” Gerstman said.