Despite all of the national focus on community colleges, enrollment in two-year institutions has been steadily declining, dropping 16 percent from 2010 to 2015, according to EAB, a research and technology group.
Conventional wisdom would chalk that up to an improving economy, which has people heading to work instead of the classroom.
But EAB says it’s also four-year colleges — not just jobs — that are luring students away. From 1980 to 2002, community colleges had 40 percent to 44 percent of the higher-education enrollment in the United States. Since then, their share has dropped to an all-time low of 37.9 percent as four-year colleges have stepped up their marketing and recruiting efforts.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/What-Community-Colleges-Are/236249