More high schoolers taking college courses, boosting community college enrollment

Although still 7 percent below their pre-pandemic headcount of 128,624 students in 2019, Iowa’s 15 community colleges in 2024 made year-over-year enrollment gains in 2024 thanks largely to record joint enrollment by high school students wanting to earn community college credit at no cost to them or their families.

The 54,654 jointly-enrolled high school students last year accounted for 46 percent of Iowa’s 119,310 total community college students — an all-time high, compared to 39 percent in 2019 and 26 percent two decades ago in 2004.

For two of the 15 campuses, joint-enrolled high school students now account for more than half their total student bodies: Northeast Iowa Community College at 57 percent and Des Moines Area Community College at 54 percent, according to the new 2024 “Condition of Community Colleges” report made public last week.

Only four of the 15 colleges reported joint-enrollment percentages below 40 percent in 2024, including Cedar Rapids’ Kirkwood Community College at 37 percent — the third-lowest across the campuses.

And while its 6,321 joint-enrolled students of 16,939 in 2024 amounted to a portion below most of the other institutions, Kirkwood’s joint-enrollment percent last year was nearly 10 points above its 28 percent in 2019.

Without those gains among the high school population, Kirkwood’s total enrollment drop since 2019 of 11 percent would have been double at 22 percent.

At the state level, without joint-enrollment, Iowa’s total year-over-year enrollment bump last year would have been under half a percent and its total student loss since 2019 would have been 17 percent instead of 7.

“This trend raises important questions for our institutional leaders and state leaders, as participation continues to climb,” Iowa’s Community Colleges Bureau Chief Amy Gieseke told members of the Iowa Board of Education on Thursday. “How do we ensure the model is sustainable? How do we measure success of joint enrollment?”

‘Financial burden’

At an institutional level, Gieseke said, administrators are discussing the finances of Iowa’s joint enrollment programming that lets high schoolers earn college credit at no cost to them through supplemental weighting provided by the state’s school funding formula and contracts that school districts arrange with community colleges.

“As this grows, I can tell you the financial aspects of concurrent enrollment is becoming increasingly important and an increasing topic of conversation,” she said. “Because even though it’s funded partially by the state, some entities feel like they’re losing money through the joint enrollment enterprise. So that’s a large topic of conversation.”

Nationally, the Community College Research Center in 2023 found “dual enrollment can be a big financial burden for community colleges.”

“In most parts of the country, community colleges receive less funding per dual enrollment student than they receive for their regular, non-dual-enrollment students,” according to the research, adding, “If community colleges are to continue to provide broad access to high-quality programs, they need to be able to sustain these programs.”

In 2023, Iowa’s community colleges reported $44.1 million in total revenue from its 52,814 jointly-enrolled high school students — or about $834.42 per student. That year the average tuition per credit hour for a traditional in-state student was $206 — amounting to $3,090 per every student taking a full semester load of 15 credit hours.

According to the 2023 report, Kirkwood and Des Moines Area Community College reported generating the most joint-enrollment revenue — given their size — at $6.3 million and $9.7 million, respectively. They also both served the most high schools, at 47 for Kirkwood and 61 for DMACC.

Intentional enrollment

Ensuring students have access to the joint enrollment option also is a peak concern at the state level, Gieseke said.

“We're thinking about how we ensure all students have equal opportunity,” she said — pointing to one of the goals of joint enrollment: saving students time and money in getting a degree and out into the workforce.

To that end, community college administrators also are working toward being more intentional with their high school-level students wanting to get some college credit under their belt.

“We're thinking about how we can promote intentional advising of joint enrollment so that this large percentage of course-taking is really strategic and is getting students on a specific pathway — or letting them explore pathways — versus a student on their own choosing random courses that's less intentional and less helpful for the student,” Gieseke said.

“One of our key priorities is working toward more intentional enrollment and planning around joint enrollment because we want to know that this is reducing time to degree and reducing cost.”

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Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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