More Iowa high schoolers taking college courses

Of Iowa’s 154,288 high schoolers in the last academic year, around one-third took at least one course at a local community college, a trend that’s exploded over the last decade as more students look to accumulate credits and cut their costs when they go to college.

Joint enrollment — when high school students take one or more community college courses — can happen in a variety of ways, including through a contractual relationship between a school district and community college.

School districts get state dollars for students who take community college courses — allowing K-12 schools to pay for the college-level instruction, which students often receive at no personal expense.

Iowa’s joint enrollment in the 2021-22 academic year bounced up 6 percent from 47,262 students to 50,082 — nearing the state’s record high of 51,800 in the 2019-20 academic year.

That total was 43 percent of all community college enrollment in the 2022 academic year, according to a new 2022 Iowa community colleges joint enrollment report released this week.

A decade ago in 2012, jointly enrolled students accounted for 26 percent of all community college enrollment. And, since 2004, Iowa’s joint enrollment has spiked 138 percent — making the state a national leader in the percent of high schoolers taking community college courses.

Where Iowa enrolls nearly 37 percent of its students under age 18, the national rate is 16 percent, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Better outcomes

“Research indicates that participation in joint enrollment can lead to higher graduation and college enrollment rates, higher college grade-point averages, greater credit accumulation and increased rates of credential attainment,” according to the Iowa Department of Education’s 2022 Condition of Iowa’s Community Colleges report.

Iowa’s jointly enrolled high schoolers last year earned a total 1,804 degrees, diplomas or certificates alongside their high school diplomas — marking a 61 percent jump in a single year from 2021, according to the new report.

Compared to the 907 awards that Iowa’s jointly enrolled students earned just two years ago in the 2019-20 academic year — when joint enrollment was higher, setting a state record — the count of high schoolers earning college-level awards has doubled.

“In (academic year) 2021-22, the average number of credit hours taken per student was 8.5, equivalent to about two or three courses per student,” according to the state’s condition report. “This number has increased by more than 1.5 credit hours since (academic year) 2004.”

Kirkwood trends

All of Iowa’s 15 community colleges last year saw an increase in joint enrollment credit hours taken, with all but two reporting a joint enrollment head count bump.

Cedar Rapids-based Kirkwood Community College was among those reporting rises in both — with a 4 percent uptick in joint enrollment students and credit hours taken.

As a percent of all students, however, Kirkwood reported the second-smallest joint enrollment portion — compared with Iowa’s other community colleges — at 34 percent, nearly 10 percentage points below the state average of 43 percent.

Kirkwood tied for the lowest percent of joint enrollment credit hours at 19 percent of its total — compared with Des Moines Area Community College, for example, which reported 34 percent of its total credit hours fell into the joint enrollment category.

Kirkwood, among the Iowa community colleges that has seen total enrollment slipping since 2011, saw its joint enrollment climb to 5,620 last year.

Demographics

Like the rest of Iowa’s community colleges, the vast majority of Kirkwood’s high school students are white, at 76 percent, and high school upperclassmen, at 78 percent.

When comparing the data of jointly enrolled students to all high school students in Iowa, more female students take community college courses than male students, “even though data shows lower overall female enrollment in grades 9 through 12.”

“Additionally, the racial/ethnic background of students participating in the concurrent enrollment program is less diverse than all students enrolled in grades 9 through 12,” according to the report.

In the last academic year, about 18 percent of jointly enrolled students identified as minority, compared with 26 percent of all students enrolled in Iowa’s public high schools.

Where white students account for 74 percent of all high schoolers in Iowa, they account for 82 percent of all jointly enrolled students, according to the report. Asian students are the only other group with joint enrollment numbers outpacing their share of all students.

Where Black students account for 6 percent of all Iowa high schoolers, they account for 3 percent of all those jointly enrolled.

Post-graduation trends

Catering to minority students could become paramount going forward, as the percent of Iowa public high school graduates who identify as such has been rising and is projected to continue, while the percent of white students has fallen from 86 percent in 2011 to 79 percent in 2018, according to the Iowa Statewide Longitudinal Data System.

Although that system reported the largest percent of Iowa public high school graduates — when asked about their post-graduation plans — said they’re going to a community college, at 30 percent, the rate has slipped from 38 percent in 2011.

All of Iowa’s college and university campuses have aired concerns over looming enrollment trends..

And, despite Gov. Kim Reynolds’ push to get more working-aged Iowans some form of higher education, a growing percent of graduating high schoolers report plans to jump straight into the workforce — at 15 percent in 2021, compared with 9 percent in 2011, according to the longitudinal data system.

That trend holds true nationally, too.

When U.S. adults without a bachelor’s degree were asked in a Pew Research Center poll why they didn’t pursue one, 42 percent said they couldn’t afford it; 36 percent said they needed to work to support their family; 29 percent said they simply didn’t want to; and 23 percent said they didn’t need more education for the job they wanted.

A Gallup poll reported Americans’ view of the importance of a college education has fallen — with 70 percent calling it “very important” in 2013 to 51 percent viewing it as such in 2019, according to data recently presented to the Board of Regents.

Bottom lines

Those trends, financial concerns, and research showing joint enrollment can lead to collegiate pursuits makes the surging high school enrollment in Iowa’s community colleges increasingly relevant — including for the campuses, which generate revenue from joint enrollment.

“In (academic year) 2022, community colleges generated more than $39 million in revenue from concurrent enrollment courses,” according to the new report.

Kirkwood brought in the second-most revenue among community colleges in the state last year from its joint enrollment at $5.1 million.

In its efforts to balance its budget in the face of challenging headwinds, Kirkwood earlier this year announced plans to close and sell its Iowa City campus — while also exploring “expanding its partnership with Iowa City Public Schools at the district’s newly acquired facility on the ACT campus.”

“An expanded partnership of this nature would allow Kirkwood to retain a presence in Iowa City, and that is very important,” Kirkwood President Lori Sundberg wrote in a recent letter to employees about the Iowa City changes. “There are many potential synergies that could result from being physically located closer to such a crucial K-12 partner.

“We believe this potentially presents an exciting opportunity for the college, the school district, and the entire community.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com