LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Woodland Community College and Yuba College are reporting an increase in enrollments and educational opportunities in high-demand occupations.
Woodland Community College and Yuba College play a critical role in the regional economy, providing pathways for transfer to four-year higher educational institutions and ensuring there continue to be highly trained students available to enter our regional workforce.
Both colleges offer robust transfer and Career and Technical, or CTE, programs including degrees and certificates in administration of justice, agriculture, business, culinary arts, early childhood education, nursing, psychology and veterinary technology.
To support students in achieving their educational goals and to encourage enrollment, Yuba Community College District awarded over $17 million dollars of financial aid during the last academic year.
This financial support is critical for students. A recent College Scorecard analysis notes, “YCCD institution’s strong combination of graduation rate performance in the face of elevated student poverty rates, as well as their ability to prepare graduates who can earn disproportionately high wages for their home counties, illustrates these intuition’s contributions to economic mobility in northern California.”
Statewide California Community Colleges experienced a steep decline in enrollment during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, losing approximately 300,000 students or an 18% drop in enrollment.
YCCD colleges also experienced a similar decline, dropping 19% from 2019-2020 pre-pandemic enrollments.
To address the decline, Woodland Community College and Yuba College, implemented a number of strategies to increase enrollments including, increased marketing, outreach, and engagement, expanded dual enrollment offerings, focused outreach to older students who have some college or an interest in upskilling, targeted reengagement to students who departed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and updated scheduling processes to better align program needs and student demand.
The Yuba Community College District said the work began to positively impact enrollments during the fall 2022 semester, which was the first semester the district began to see an increase in enrollments.
Preliminary fall 2023 enrollment data indicates that the positive enrollment trend is continuing with an 8% increase in year-over-year enrollments.
Both Yuba College and Woodland Community College offer a variety of late-start classes in face-to-face and online modalities for anyone interested in taking classes this fall.
Classes are available at the Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College in Clearlake.
Woodland Community College and Yuba College report on increased enrollment
- LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
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