Illinois community colleges this year have seen the largest increase in enrollment since 2009, with 37 of 45 community colleges reporting an increase in headcount. There was a 7.4 percent increase in enrollment statewide from Fall 2023 to Fall 2024, the highest increase in 15 years. Fall 2022 to Fall 2023 only saw a 5.7 percent increase in enrollment. Community colleges in Illinois have been enjoying this enrollment growth for three years in a row. The nation as a whole has only had a 4.7 percent increase in students attending community college yearly, so Illinois has a bigger increase. Some of this growth can be attributed to the Dual Credit Program, which allows high school students to take college classes through their local community college to earn college and high school credit at the same time. This program saw an increase of 20 percent in enrollment this year. Along with increased enrollment, the number of students taking online classes has decreased. This was also the third year in a row that this number went down. In Fall 2024, only 35.6 percent of students were taking at least one online class. The previous year, in 2023, 42.3 percent of students were online. The previous years were even higher. In 2022, the percentage of online students was 47.3 percent and 56.8 percent in 2021. This means that more people are enrolling in community college and attending classes in-person. There are more students in the state’s community colleges (265,227 students) than in the 12 public universities (185, 590 students).
I think this is wonderful news. Community college is a great way for people to further their education. It is much more cost-effective than a four-year university, making it more financially feasible for those that may have lower incomes. Low-income students have a chance to obtain college-level learning and a degree. While community colleges in Illinois do not offer bachelor’s level degrees, they still allow those who attend and graduate the opportunity to expand their knowledge and get a degree that may help them in the search for work and higher pay. This makes college more accessible for people who may not otherwise be able to get higher education.
Community college is also a great resource for those who do not feel ready to attend a four-year university. A university can feel daunting and scary for those that did not excel in high school, find school to be difficult, or have not been in school recently. These people should still be included in higher education. Community college offers a transition from high school or working to a university. Students can learn skills that are important in higher education in community college, such as studying techniques or how to properly write papers. Community college is a good environment to learn these skills because it feels less intimidating. Some community colleges provide skilled career training, such as welding or commercial driver’s license classes. All around, community college gives students a chance to learn at any level, and the increase in enrollment shows that the citizens of Illinois are working to create better lives for themselves.
I attended a community college. I obtained my associate degree in human services from Lincoln Land Community College. I absolutely loved it there. For me, community college was the perfect transition from high school to a university. I am a rather anxious person and tend to get very overwhelmed with new experiences. Community college acted as a steppingstone from my basic education in high school to my advanced education at a university. I also really liked that I have never had to live in a dorm, which is my worst nightmare. Community college also provided me with a lower-cost education. I am paying for college by myself, so the cheaper classes at Lincoln Land really helped me out. Overall, my experience at Lincoln Land was amazing and was everything I needed it to be.
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We often have students who had great experiences at Lincoln Land Community College, and I can’t remember ever having a student who complained about Lincoln Land being unsatisfactory.
My son attended UIS, and graduated in December of 2016. One advantage was that he would get half-off on tuition. That is one of the benefits for employees at state universities is that the tuition—but not fees or expenses of living on campus—are reduced by 50% for children who take classes at public universities—children, but not spouses. Even so, I encouraged him to take some of his general education courses at Lincoln Land Community College during his freshman year. That worked out well for him. My younger son attended the University of Oregon, but even there, he took one or two courses at Lane County Community College during his freshman year. These were general education courses that were unavailable to him at the University of Oregon because of a schedule conflict or some other barrier.
The graduation rates (across all the community college in Illinois) is about 34%, meaning that about a third of students who started classes in 2019 had earned an associate degree by summer of 2022. According to the Census Bureau, the median income for person with an associate degree as their highest degree attained was $49,500 in 2022 when the national average for all workers was $54,200. The nearly $50,000 compared favorably with those with merely some college and no degree ($45,200) and those with only a high school degree (or equivalent, and no college experience), which was $35,500. Going on to a four-year school and earning a bachelor’s degree put people in a category where median incomes were $66,600, and going on from there to earn additional degrees at the graduate level (master’s degrees or higher) put people in a category where median income was $80,200.
There are always a couple cautions I want to add when comparing median or average incomes of people by income level. First, these are measures of central tendency, and tell us about the experience of most people with those sorts of educational attainments. However, if we look at the bottom 20% of the income distribution within the group of persons who have a bachelor’s degree and compare it to the top 20% of the persons with an associate degree, I’m pretty sure the most financially successful persons with associate degrees are doing better, in terms of income. A four-year degree is a good financial investment for most people who get a college degree, but lots of people who start a four-year degree end up with “some college, no degree” or end up on the bottom quarter or fifth of the income spread of those with college degrees, and for these people, college may not have been the best financial investment.
That said, there are several other benefits from attending and graduating colleges that stand independent of the financial advantages. Persons with college degrees tend to be better citizens by most measures of good citizenship (less likely to be incarcerated, more likely to volunteer, more generous in giving to charities, more likely to vote), and they are likely to have better marriages (more contentment in their marriages and lower rates of divorce). College graduates tend to be a bit healthier. These are advantages that persist even in multivariate regressions where we control for income and intelligence, so something about the college experience seems to be improving lives in ways that are independent of the financial opportunities. I don’t remember whether these advantages correlate to associate degrees as well as bachelor’s degrees, but my guess is that they probably do.
The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) tells us that about 35% of students in the Illinois community colleges transfer out to a 4-year university (that can include those who graduate with an associate degree and transfer to a 4-year university). That’s a bit higher than national averages. Also, in Illinois 53.8% of students who transfer out to a 4-year-university have earned a bachelor’s degree, which is much higher than the national average of 42.2% (and that study excluded the students who were in community college with some dual credit earned because they were good students in high school and had earned community college credit while in high school, so that probably the graduation rates are even higher).
Only three states (Minnesota, and the two Dakotas) outranked Illinois in overall degree completion among community college students. Illinois ranked first in the nation in the percentage of full-time community college students who earn degrees at both their community college and a four-year institution (27.8%).
I’ve heard one argument about community colleges not being such a good option. This argument usually looks at the four-year completion rate of students who start in a four-year institution and compares that rate to the graduation rate at four-year institutions among those who transfer in after studying in a community college. In Illinois, the graduation rate at the public universities is about 70% (percentage of students starting as freshmen who have earned a bachelor’s degree by six years after matriculating). Compare that to the 54% of transfers from community colleges who have earned a bachelor’s degree (which is a great rate in national comparisons), and people see that gap of 16%-points and suggest that if more of those types of students who start at community colleges started at 4-year public universities instead, wouldn’t that improve their odds of graduating? The argument usually suggests that community colleges set up people to have low expectations of themselves, and forms in students an identity as being not as capable as those who start as freshmen at four-year institutions, and this may make those who have completed an associate degree more willing to drop out of their four-year university programs. I don’t know if this is an accurate argument. Possibly there are variables in the backgrounds of those who go to community colleges (coming from households with lower incomes or less parental support for higher education; having less of an idea of the course of study they want to pursue; having fewer family members who have bachelor’s degrees) that explain the 16-percentage-point difference in graduation rates between those who transfer in from community colleges and those who start out at 4-year colleges. Also, it may be the case that in may places around the country the community colleges are of poor quality. I know that Lincoln Land does a good job of educating its students, and based on the reports from the IBHE, I believe that community colleges in Illinois generally do a fine job educating the state’s students, but there are probably some schools that aren’t so great, even in Illinois, and probably in other states there are some bad community colleges.
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